Patricia

Committed to Christ: Bible Reading

March 17, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Committed to Christ: Bible Reading
Sycamore Creek Church
March 16/17, 2014
Tom Arthur
Psalm 119

Peace Friends!

books

Let’s face it. The Good Book is hard to read. In fact, it may be the best selling book of all time with enough copies to get us

to the moon and back, but I suspect that many of those copies are setting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. I came across this helpful infographic that shows us the state of things when it comes to books being sold, but I’m skeptical that those 3,900,000,000 Bibles sold have all been read. I read that most families have about four copies of the Bible. I probably have fifty! But I don’t read them all.

When we look at those in the room, there are a lot of different people in the room when it comes to the Bible:

Some are apathetic about it and simply don’t read it.
Some think it’s a dangerous book and stay away from it.
Some think it’s a hard book to understand and not worth the effort and don’t read it.
Some think it’s a hard book to understand and worth the effort and put a lot of time into reading it.
Some think it’s God’s inerrant (without error) and infallible (reliable) word and read it daily.
Some think it’s God’s inerrant (without error) and infallible (reliable) word and rarely read it.
Some think it’s a good spiritual and moral guide and read it occasionally when looking for guidance.
Some don’t know what to think about it but read it daily and encounter God regularly in their reading.

During the month of February we took an anonymous survey to get a lay of the land for how often people in our church read the Bible. Here are the results:

Survey Results: Do you read the Bible?
2 – No, I have never read the Bible.
1 – No, I don’t read the Bible, but I want to with all my heart.
6 – I used to, but I don’t anymore.
32 – Yes, I read the Bible sometimes.
17 – Yes, I read the Bible frequently.
12 – Yes, I read the Bible on a daily basis.

JudyB

My own experience with reading the Bible has been mixed. I remember growing up and walking in on my mom reading the Bible in her prayer chair. It still happens today! She’s never upset that I’m interrupting her reading the Bible. She just looks up with a smile and waits for my question or comment. Once she has satisfied me, she goes back to reading her Bible. This makes me wonder how often my kids will walk in on me reading the Bible. How likely is that to happen in your home? I share this just to let you know that I had a mother who modeled for me the importance of reading the Bible daily, but as a kid I didn’t follow her model.

When I was in third grade I had an incident with a skateboard. In the wisdom of a third grader I decided to skate down a huge hill while wearing my plastic soccer cleats. When the skateboard got going so fast that it wobbled back and forth, I jumped ship. Of course, my plastic cleats had no traction on the asphalt to stop me, but my knee did. I tore my knee up pretty bad, and there was a lot of blood everywhere. I had to walk a mile to get home, bleeding the whole way. When I got home my mom wasn’t there, so I climbed into bed, and prayed a desperate Hail Mary to God, “God, I’ll read the entire Bible if you stop my knee from bleeding.” I picked up my Bible and began reading Genesis, the first book of the Bible. About three chapters in, my mom came home, my knee had stopped bleeding, and I stopped reading the Bible. I didn’t keep that promise then, but I have since read the Bible several times over. in her prayer chair. It still happens today! She’s never upset that I’m interrupting her reading the Bible. She just looks up with a smile and waits for my question or comment. Once she has satisfied me, she goes back to reading her Bible. This makes me wonder how often my kids will walk in on me reading the Bible. How likely is that to happen in your home? I share this just to let you know that I had a mother who modeled for me the importance of reading the Bible daily, but as a kid I didn’t follow her model.

In high school, I was very active in youth group. We were reminded regularly that we should be reading our Bibles daily. I don’t know that I read my Bible daily, but I did pick up the practice of reading a devotional every day, or most days. I don’t know why I picked this particular devotional, but I began reading Our Daily Bread (http://odb.org). Maybe I picked it because they would send it free to your house. They still do that today!

I had grown up with a certain view of the Bible called “inerrancy.” This view of the Bible claimed that the Bible was without error in any way, although it usually admitted that this was in the original “autographs” written by the authors themselves. I wrestled with this view of the Bible considerably while in college. I didn’t wrestle with it so much because I thought there were a lot of glaring errors in significant things, but I wrestled with it because of how this view had been used over the years to create “inerrant” interpretations (like a literal six days of creation) while ignoring that there was any interpretation going on at all.

When I graduated college, got married, moved to Petoskey, and began working at the Petoskey United Methodist Church, I got involved in leading a thirty-four week Bible study called Disciple Bible Study. This study covered most of the Bible from cover to cover. I believe this might have been the first time I made good on my third-grade bargain to God and read the Bible all the way through. But in this reading of the Bible with a small group over a year, I encountered a power in the Bible that I had never encountered before. It was a power to convict and to call. It was during this Bible study that I began to sense my call to be a pastor and where Sarah and I were first convicted to begin to share our house with those who were in need in some way.

060407_ellen davis high res

During my time in Petoskey I eventually let the idea of inerrancy go. I felt it had so many problems that it was no longer tenable. In doing so I became uprooted. If the Bible wasn’t “without error” then how could it be trusted? When I was called to be a pastor and went off to seminary, I was afraid that seminary would completely destroy my view of the Bible and all I would be left with was some old crusty tradition-laden book. Thankfully, that’s not what happened. I went to Duke Divinity School which required all incoming students to take an entire year of Old Testament. I had Ellen Davis as my Old Testament professor. She saved the Bible for me. She showed me another way to look at the Bible besides a book “with errors” a book “without errors.” She showed me that the Bible was a collection of writings where the community of faith had encountered God. The Bible is a story that we can enter and find our place that becomes a faithful guide to life and faith. There is an ongoing discussion among the community of faith about what these stories mean for us today. The Bible is a book that convicts, challenges, and confronts our complacency with the holiness of God. It is a book that comforts us in our brokenness with the compassion of God. And perhaps most surprisingly, it does all of these things in an artful and creative way.

What I’d like to do with the rest of our time today is show you one example of how the Bible teaches us about itself in an artful and creative way. I’d like to do that with the longest chapter in the Bible: Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is 176 verses. It is a love poem about the Bible. But it is no ordinary love poem. It isn’t like someone sat down and just started writing lovey dovey stuff about the Bible and after 176 verses was exhausted. No. Psalm 119 has a unique hidden structure. It’s hidden in the English but it’s obvious in its original language. Psalm 119 is an acrostic with eight verses per letter of the Hebrew alphabet. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. So 22 x 8 = 176. This means that the first eight verses all begin with A. The next eight verses all begin with B, and so on. Not only does it have that unique form of an acrostic, but every line has a synonym in it for the Bible. Every line! Now that’s artistic.

So today I’d like to look at the ABGs of the Bible. ABGs? Yes, in Hebrew, there is no C. Hebrew goes Aleph, Beth, and Gimmel. So let’s begin at the beginning.

ABGs of Bible Study – Aleph
The first eight verses of Psalm 119 begin with Aleph. The first verse of Psalm 119 begins with the word “Asher” which means happy, fortunate, or blessed. Here it is:

[Asher] Happy are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord.
~Psalm 119:1

From the first verse of Psalm 119 we learn that if you want to know the way of life that will lead to life, read, study, obey, and love the words of God. Happiness comes in reading, knowing, and walking in the way of the Bible. Those who do so are fortunate and blessed. If you want to be happy, fortunate, and blessed, the Bible will be a significant part of your life.

ABGs of Bible Study – Beth
The second set of eight verses in Psalm 119 all begin with Beth. Verse eleven begins with the word, “Buleve” which means in my heart. Here it is:

[Buleve] In my heart I treasure your word
so that I may not sin against you.
~Psalm 119:11

Reading the Bible isn’t just about rotely following commands and rules out of duty. It’s about shaping and forming your heart, the seat of not only the emotions, but the governing center of the physical, intellectual, and psychological (EDB). Ellen Davis liked to tell us that the best word in English to translate what usually gets translated as “heart” is really “imagination.” So you could read this verse in this way: “In my imagination I treasure your word…” How do you image each day? How do you imagine each situation you find yourself in? Does the word of God make its way into your heart and imagination for all of life? There’s nothing rote about that, but it’s a vibrant thriving way of life that Psalm 119 is describing.

ABGs of Bible Study – Gimmel
The third set of eight verses in Psalm 119 all begin with Gimmel. Verse 18 begins with the word, “Galayne” which means “open my eyes.” Here it is:

[Galayne] Open my eyes, so that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law.
~Psalm 119:18

Notice that this is a request to God. The psalmist is asking God to open his eyes as he reads. It takes God’s Spirit illuminating the eyes of our heart, shedding light on dark places, so that we can see and understand. We usually think that we must first understand in order to believe, but here we see something different. We believe in order to understand. When our eyes are open we see the wonder of God’s words. Maybe this is why Jesus said let those with eyes to see and ears to hear, see and hear.

So we’ve looked at Aleph, Beth, and Gimmel. When I wrote this sermon originally, I had nineteen more points to get through the whole alephbeth! But it became clear fairly quickly that this was absurd. But I would like to jump ahead to Mem and Nun and give you two more bonus insights into the Bible.

Bonus! – Mem
Quite a ways into Psalm 119 you will find eight verses that all begin with Mem. Verse 103 begins with the word “MaNemlutzu” which means how sweet. Here it is:

[MaNemlutzu] How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
~Psalm 119:103

I find it interesting that the psalmist calls the Bible “sweet.” The Bible is, admittedly, a bit of an acquired taste. It’s like wine or beer. Do you remember the first time you tried one of them? You probably had to gag it down. I still don’t like the taste of beer, but the beer aficionados around me always wax eloquently about this or that sweet taste of beer. They offer me a sip, and I gag it down. I had the same experience when I first tasted wine, but over time I’ve acquired a taste for wine. It took time and perseverance, but now I can’t imagine not liking wine. The more time we spend in the Bible the more that the words become sweet as honey. The Bible grows on us. How much could you be missing out on if you did not give yourself time to acquire a taste for it?

Bonus! Bonus! – Nun
Following eight verses that all begin with Mem you’ll find eight verses that all begin with Nun. Verse 105 begins with the word, “NerLuragne” which means lamp to my feet. Here it is:

[NerLuragne] A lamp to my feet is your word
and a light to my path.
~Psalm 119:105

What the psalmist is telling you is that when you feel like you are in the dark and you don’t know where to go or where to turn, the Bible provides practical guidance for your next step. It may not always cast light on a mile down the road, but the more time you spend in the Bible the more you will know what to do right now. This isn’t always because there’s a verse about what to do for every situation. “Lord, should I buy a new car or a used one?” No. But rather it forms and shapes your character so that you begin to look at the world the way God looks at the world and you begin to see the path forward if just one step at a time.

Reading the Bible
All of this is good and dandy, but it really doesn’t mean much if you don’t actually get in the Bible and read it for yourself. I’d like to spend the rest of our time giving you a couple of tips for reading the Bible daily in a modern world.

First, if you don’t know about the YouVersion app, get on your phone right now and download it. Here’s a brief video that highlights what it does:

Millions of people have downloaded this app and find it helpful for reading, listening to, and watching the Bible.

Another great website I like is www.pray-as-you-go.org. Here you’ll find a bit more contemplative reading plan. Each day, you can download a twelve or thirteen minute MP3 that includes some music, scripture, and questions for reflection. Just listen to it in the car or while you’re exercising. You can even download an entire week at a time. Turn your car into a prayer room. Turn the gym into a temple of prayer. Turn your run or walk into a prayer and Bible reading walk. BINGO! You can pray or read the Bible as you go.

So you don’t like any of those ideas. What about getting daily emails sent to your inbox that include the Bible portions to read? Can you turn your daily email reading into daily Bible reading too? Check out www.biblegateway.com to sign up for an email Bible reading plan.

Want to go deeper? Want to be a Hebrew or Greek scholar even though you don’t know Hebrew or Greek? Then check out www.BlueLetterBible.org. You can easily look up the original languages and go deeper without knowing Greek or Hebrew!

Personally, I still like the old fashioned bound book with a cover and back and pages in between. I am currently using the NRSV Daily Bible to read through the Bible. It splits the Bible into 365 readings and goes from front to back, which is not necessarily the best way to read the Bible, but it works for me. I began in January of 2013, and I’m currently somewhere in the 200s. Moral of the story: if you don’t get through the Bible in 365 consecutive days (aka “a year”) who cares? Your pastor doesn’t either. Just keep reading.

One last way of reading the Bible that I want to share with you is what’s sometimes called “The Classic Bible Reading Plan.” If you divide the number of chapters in the Bible by 365 you’ll get four. So if you read four chapters a day, you’ll get through the Bible in a year. You don’t have to read all four chapters side by side. So here’s the classic way of doing it: read two chapters from the Old Testament, read one chapter from the New Testament, read one Proverb (and when you get to the end of the Proverbs just begin again and repeat the book), and read one Psalm (repeat the Psalms in the same manner that you repeated the Proverbs). Pretty simple. Now all you have to do is do it!

You’ve heard my story about reading the Bible, I want you to hear one more story. Justin Kring was baptized at our church a couple of summers ago and has been reading the Bible through for the first time. Here’s his experience:

I don’t know what level your commitment has been, but I know what level my commitment has been. Today we are all invited to take one step in a new commitment.

Are you ready to climb one or more steps in your Bible reading? Check all that apply.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: Bible, prayer

Committed to Christ

March 4, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Committed to Christ
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
March 2/3, 2014

How committed are you, friends? Today we begin a series called “Committed to Christ.” We’re beginning this series as Lent begins this week. Lent is the forty days that lead up to Easter. Lent is a time when we prepare to celebrate the resurrection. An ancient practice of preparation is to fast. Fasting is giving up something good to get something better. It takes pretty serious commitment to fast. How committed are you? I’d like to ask you to consider fasting from something for the next several weeks leading up to Easter and to fast for something very specific. I’d like to ask you to fast and pray that we would touch more people at Easter than we have touched before. Last year we touched 297 people at Easter. Can we touch 350 people? Can we have 350 people attend our worship over our two venues on Sunday and Monday? We can. We can have even more. We can double if we all do one thing: invite a friend. Will you fast and pray that we reach that many people?

So how committed are you? There are a wide variety of people here today with a wide variety of commitments. There are those who are:

Dragged here against their will. It’s not your first, second, third or even fourth choice.
Willingly here but not from their own initiative. It’s not your first choice but not so bad either. You learn something each week.
Actively seeking. You realize you need more than you’ve got. You hope you’ll find it here.
Giving Jesus a try. You realize Jesus has something you need.
Made some commitment to Jesus. You realize Jesus not only has what you need but he is what you need.
All in for Jesus. You realize that there is nothing else but Jesus.

Through the month of February we took an anonymous survey of those who attended worship and these are the results:

Are you a committed follower and disciple of Jesus Christ?

2 – No, I do not think I have accepted Jesus Christ.
1 – No, but maybe someday.
1 – No, but I want to with all my heart.
26 – Yes, I have accepted Jesus Christ.
42 – Yes, and someday I will be ready for an even closer walk.

I suspect that this wide variety of people suppose a wide variety of responses to who Jesus is and reflects our broader culture. If you go out on the street and ask people who Jesus is, you might get answers like this:

What were the answers you heard people say to the question: Who is Jesus? Some that I heard were: a myth, a man, a moral teacher, a spiritual power, a spiritual leader among many, the best spiritual leader, and the savior and lord.

Here’s something I want you to know about SCC: No matter where you are at in answering this question of who Jesus is, you are welcome! I went through a period, and in many ways am still in it, of asking this same question: Who is Jesus? I grew up in a Christian home and went regularly to worship with my mom. I was very active in the youth group at my church. When I was a senior in high school, my youth director was let go for being someone who had lots of questions and not a lot of answers. I’m not sure it was the questions that got him fired, but the lack of answers wasn’t always welcome at my church. I went off to Wheaton College, a Christian liberal arts school, with a lot of those questions including: who is Jesus. At a certain point I thought I could no longer trust in who Jesus was. I let that belief go for a time period. It was a very dark period in my life. I felt that almost all the hope and meaning had left my life too.

Asking the question, Who is Jesus, is nothing new. It happened even back in Bible times. One day Jesus brought the question up himself:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
Matthew 16:13 NRSV

Now that’s a weird thing to say, isn’t it? What does Jesus mean by “Son of Man”? It’s a bit of code language that Jesus is using here. It’s like sharing a funny line from a movie with someone who didn’t see the movie. Here’s the original reference from the book of Daniel, a book written about the Israelite time of exile after they were conquered by the Babylonian Empire.

I saw one like a son of man
coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed.
Daniel 7:13-14 NRSV

So this “son of man” was expected to come back and bring a kind of glorious political revival to the nation of Israel after their humiliation by the Babylonian Empire. To have dominion and play the role of a king for Israel. But even more than that, this is a global vision because it is for “all people, nations, and languages.” And it lasts forever. He won’t die. Whoa. Something is going to be really different about this “son of man.” He may look like a man, “like a son of man”, but he will also be a whole lot more.

OK, now that you’ve got the code language down, let’s go back to the story of Jesus with his disciples. He asks them who people are saying he is. This is their answer:

And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:14-16 NRSV

So they give lots of answers just like the man on the street video. Nothing new there. But Jesus takes the question and makes it much more personal. He asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers with some more code language. He says Jesus is the Messiah. What’s the messiah?

Messiah is Hebrew for the Greek word “Christ” which means “anointed one.” You might think that Peter is using code language from the Old Testament, just like Jesus was using code language from the Old Testament when he said “son of man.” But the word Messiah doesn’t show up anywhere in the Old Testament. It only shows up in the New Testament. It is a cultural and political term. It is usually used as an adjective as in “The anointed king” and usually referred to a king although it also would be used of a priest or a prophet. So Peter borrows a cultural and political term to answer Jesus’ question. And he says that Jesus is the Messiah, not a messiah, not a prophet, priest and king but The Prophet, Priest, and King

We’re really drilling down on the answer to who Jesus is right now. So what does it mean that Jesus is The Prophet, Priest, and King? While you may think of a prophet as someone who tells the future, a biblical prophet is less about telling the future and more about convicting you of how you are not living into God’s will, particularly when it comes to idols and injustice. Jesus is The Prophet of all prophets. A priest is someone who makes you right with God. A priest offers sacrifices and prayers to God on your behalf. Jesus The Priest ultimately offers us himself. A king is someone who exercises authority over you and demands your allegiance. Jesus is The King, your ultimate authority for how to live and his love requires full and total allegiance.

I told you that when I went to college I wrestled deeply with the question: Who is Jesus? I came to see that any answer to that question, even negative answers, required a certain level of faith. Human knowledge is uncertain by its very nature. It is finite. To answer who Jesus is in the affirmative requires faith. I already knew this. What I did not know until I let go of my faith in Jesus was that to answer who Jesus is in the negative requires faith too. The big difference was that to answer No meant that I no longer had any ultimate hope or meaning in my life. To answer Yes meant that I did have hope and meaning. And so I once again committed to Jesus answering: Yes, Jesus, you are the prophet, priest, and king of my life. And my life has been and continues to be transformed every day because of that commitment.

Back to Peter. Peter answered Jesus’ question saying that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus responded saying:

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
Matthew 16:18 NRSV

Jesus builds the community of his people on this confession: Jesus is the Messiah, The Prophet, Priest and King. How is that community built? How is that community slowly transformed when making that commitment? Paul, the first missionary of the church, explains it this way:

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

We are “being transformed.” It is a process that happens constantly. And notice the passive tense. Transformation is something that happens to you rather than you doing it yourself. And it’s also present tense, right now…right now…right now…right now…

How does transformation happen? Paul tells us it’s by “seeing the glory of the Lord.” When we come into God’s presence, we see God’s glory, and you can’t walk away unchanged. God transforms and changes us. So how do we come into God’s presence? That’s what the next six weeks are all about. We come into God’s presence by making a commitment to follow Jesus in

Prayer
Bible Reading
Worship
Witness
Financial Giving
Serving

I shared with you my own story of how this has been happening, but I’d like to share with you the story of some new partners at SCC. They are Dave and Erin Wasinger. Here’s their story.

I don’t know what level your commitment has been to Jesus, but I know what level my commitment has been. Today we are all invited to take one step in a new commitment. Will you choose to be a committed follower and disciple of Jesus Christ? Here are some options for you today:

No, today I am not ready to make a commitment. If you’re at this place, I want to thank you for being here. I thank God for you. Since you’re here already, you might as well make the most of it: be open to being surprised.
No, but maybe someday. Thank you for being here. I thank God for you. Since you’re here, and it’s not so bad, how about taking it a step further and exploring a little bit more who this Jesus really is: pick up The Case for Christ or The Jesus I Never Knew, both are free by the door as you leave.
No, but I want to with all my heart. Thank you for being here. I thank God for you. What’s keeping you from taking that initial step to follow Jesus? Keep exploring. Keep seeking. Ask God for faith. Consider Christianity 101, a nine-week small group that I begin leading today.
Yes, today, for the first time, I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. Thank you for being here. I thank God for you. You’re on the road. Let’s walk down the road a little further. Join me for Christianity 101.
Yes, I have already accepted Jesus Christ. Thank you for being here. I thank God for you. How far have you traveled down the road with Jesus since you first began? If you’re still in the same place as when you began, how can you go deeper? This series is especially for you!
Yes, and someday I will be ready for an even closer walk with the Lord. Thank you for being here. I thank God for you. Maybe that “someday” will be during this series. Will you ask God to show you what your next steps might be?
Yes, and today I am ready for a closer walk with the Lord, growing to include the following: Jesus is my guiding light, my compass, my lighthouse. I will ask the Lord for that “peace that passes all understanding.” I will strive for my speech and behavior to please the Lord. I will strive for my attitudes, values, and thoughts to please the Lord. I will be passionate about the Lord as the priority of my life. I will strive to be able to explain clearly what I believe and why. I look forward to having a constant awareness of the Lord’s presence. I will strive for others to see Christ in my life, words, and actions. At each major decision of my life, I will ask, “What would Jesus have me do?” I will bring the Lord into my marriage, my family, and all my relationships. I will allow Christ to love others through me, even those who are different from me. Thank you for being here. I thank God for you. Keep growing. Keep going deeper. Keep looking to commit more and more of your life to Christ. And while you’re at it, who are you investing in? Who are you sharing with what you’ve learned? Who are you helping to take the next step of commitment?

After each week of this series, there will be the opportunity to join a one-week follow-up class right after worship led by someone different each week in our church. If you’re ready to take a deeper step one week, join that class and learn from someone who has taken a deeper step of commitment. Today’s follow-up class is a little different. It’s a class I’m teaching called Christianity 101. While all the other follow-up classes are just one week, this one runs for nine sessions, because it’s a class to prepare you for baptism or to prepare you to reaffirm your baptism or to prepare you to have your children baptized or to just go deeper in your faith. If you are at the beginning of your commitment, would you join me for Christianity 101?

Jesus, today we ask you to help us respond to your question: Who do you say I am? Today we ask you to give us your Spirit that we might say Yes to the commitment of following you. May we follow you in the presence of God and see the glory of God and be transformed day by day from one degree of glory to another. Amen.

Filed Under: Manuscripts, Sermons Tagged With: Christ, commitment, fasting, Lent

Team

February 24, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Bod4God – Team
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
February 23/24, 2014

Peace friends! Have you been watching the Olympics? I haven’t seen the Iron Lotus yet, but I have seen Meryl Davis and Charlie White.

Did you watch these two win the gold medal in ice dancing? Wow! They are magical. They look like they’re right out of a Disney movie. They make quite a team, and they’re not alone either. There’s the whole team approach to figure skating this year. While Meryl and Charlie won gold, the entire U.S. figure skating team this year won bronze.

The US Figure Skating Team isn’t alone either. Because they’re competing alongside all the other teams from the US. As for Saturday morning, TEAM USA was in second place for the most medals:

The top athletes in their sports don’t compete alone. Even if they’re on the ice alone or in the luge alone or on the slope alone, they’re not alone. They’ve got a team they’ve trained with. They’ve got a team that is standing on the side cheering for them. They’ve got a coach. They’ve got a whole nation cheering for them to win!

Today we’re wrapping up a series called Bod4God. We’ve been looking at what it means that our bodies are a temple of God. How do we dedicate these bodies so that they truly are a temple of God? The problem I want to wrestle with today is this:

Problem: It’s hard to do it alone.

There’s a nasty cycle that we often get into when it comes to our bodies. Health problems lead to depression, and depression leads to isolation, and isolation leads to further health problems. It’s hard to do it alone. It’s hard to take care of these bodies by ourselves. Here’s the point of today’s message:

Point: You’re never alone!

Throughout this series we’ve been looking at an acronym: D.I.E.T.

We started with D for dedication. Then we moved on to I for inspiration. Last week we heard about E for eating and exercise. Today we’re wrapping up with T for team. Who is on your Bod4God team? I want to look at four teams you need to have in place to have a Bod4God.

1. Eternal Team
Whether you’ve got any other team or not, you’ve got this team: the eternal team. God is always with you and is always able to do more than you could even ask or imagine. What? Yes. More than you could ask or imagine! Paul, the first missionary of the church said it this way:

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine…”
Ephesians 3:20 NRSV

What are you able to imagine about your body? God can do abundantly more. Abundantly more!

So what does this eternal team mean? What does it mean that God is with you and able to do abundantly more? One thing it means is that you have the wisdom of the creator of the universe at your fingertips. You’ve got the greatest body trainer you could ever imagine. Even more than you could imagine, because the creator of the universe knows your body better than any other person ever could, even yourself. James, Jesus’ brother, said it this way:

“If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to you.”
James 1:5 NRSV

A lot of our problems come down to a basic issue: we lack self-control. God can give us wisdom, but can God give us self-control? Absolutely! Back to Paul:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Galatians 5:22-23 NRSV

When God’s Spirit is at work in you, all of these amazing virtues begin to take root in your life: love, joy, peace and on to self-control. You get the wisdom you need from God not to eat that extra doughnut and you get the self-control from God’s Spirit to actually restrain yourself.

Having a Bod4God is hard to do alone, but you’re never alone. You’ve always got an eternal team: God.

2. Exercise Team
I think that God knows that we need a flesh and blood team that we can see and feel and touch and hear right now. God is spirit and we worship God in spirit and truth, but God puts people around us to also be God’s presence in our lives. When it comes to our Bod4God team, who is on your exercise team?

The Proverbs say:

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

The past two weeks I’ve gathered with whoever wants to join me at Meridian Mall on Friday mornings at 9:30AM to walk the mall. My goal is always to get 10,000 steps in by the end of our time together. Different people who have showed up have had different goals. Some have a goal of one lap around the mall. Some have a goal of 5000 steps. Some are aiming for 15,000. The thing we share in common is that we’re all there together, and it’s the team together that helps motivate us to get off our butts on a Friday morning and do some exercise. I am motivated to do it because I know that people are there waiting for me and counting on me to be there. There’s a kind of basic accountability inherent in being part of an exercise team. The team expects you to show and waits for you to show up.

Who’s on your Bod4God exercise team? I’ve heard stories so far about people taking advantage of the two community groups that we’ve partnered with in this series. Some are joining the YMCA at a reduced rate for three months. They’re working out in the weight room for the first time in a long time. There are others who are taking up Karate at the Original Okinawan Karate of Holt who also is giving a huge discount for three months or a free month. Each of these communities of exercise is acting as an exercise team to help people have a Bod4God.

Don’t do it alone. Who’s on your Bod4God exercise team?

3. Education Team
All of us need some help when it comes to understanding better what it means to live a healthy lifestyle. Who is on your education team? Where are you getting more and better knowledge about what it means to take care of your body? The book of Proverbs says:

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.”
Proverbs 13:20 NRSV

If the only people you’re hanging out with are other people who have bad health habits, then it’s likely you’ll have bad health habits too. But if you’re surrounding yourself with people who are also seeking knowledge and education about how to better take care of their bodies, it is likely you will take better care of your body too. Wisdom breeds wisdom. Foolishness breeds foolishness.

Let’s talk a moment about doctors. When was the last time you invited your doctor onto your education team? Personally, I like to think of my doctor as a preventative team member. I like to talk to my doctor before things become a real problem. When was the last time you had a yearly physical? It’s called “yearly” for a reason. When was the last time you invited your doctor to give it to you straight? If you don’t like your doctor, then don’t give up on doctors. Find another doctor! If you don’t like that doctor, find another one. If three of them all tell you the same thing, that you need to exercise, eat less, and eat better food, then the problem probably isn’t with your doctor. You’ve got an education team that is trying to educate you about something, and you’ve got your ears plugged up. Let him who has ears to hear, hear.

Let’s expand this education team a bit. Again, I like to think of this education team as preventative. Most of us think of physical therapy as something you do once you’re hurt. Sarah and I had a close friend who was a physical therapist when we lived in Petoskey. We were getting ready to go on a backpacking trip to Yellowstone. We were going to hike thirty five miles over five days into the heart of the backcountry. I realized that at some point I would literally be a 17.5 mile walk from any kind of civilization.

I didn’t want my body to break down on me in the midst of Timbuktu. So we asked our PT friend what to do. He said that he had a wellness program that we could sign up for. We went in and he analyzed our bodies, their strengths and weaknesses, and he crafted a set of exercises that were specific to each of our bodies. The end result was that we were in better shape than we had ever been and our bodies gave us no problems. The hiking was tough, but it was also very enjoyable because we enlisted an education team.

It’s hard to do it alone. Enlist your doctor, physical therapist, nutritionist, websites, books, and more. Who is on your Bod4God education team?

4. Encouragement Team
All of us need cheerleaders. Every Olympic athlete has someone cheering them on. The book of Proverbs says:

Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up.
Proverbs 12:25 NRSV

The primary place where we try to build encouragement teams here at SCC is in our small groups. We’ve currently got 20 or 21 small groups meeting weekly to encourage one another to have a Bod4God. One of those teams is our challenge group. After two weeks our challenge group has lost forty-eight pounds! Friends, it’s hard to do it alone, but together you find encouragement to press on.

Harold Koenig, the director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University has been studying the relationship between faith and health for a long time. The Agnostic Pub Group I help lead has been reading and discussing his book, The Healing Power of Faith. In it he writes, “Research finds that the support of a loving family or close-knit social community such as a religious congregation can bolster that motivation to persevere [in any weight-control effort].” It’s hard to do it alone, but with a faith community of encouragement, you can do it.

That brings us to Sycamore Creek Church. Why is it important to be a partner with a church? Why is it important to make a deeper commitment to partner with a community of faith? Is it because SCC is perfect? No. Is it because we always get it right? No. It’s because here you will find an encouragement team not only for your Bod4God but also for your entire life. It’s hard to do life alone. Find a church family and make a commitment to partner with it.

We recently changed our “membership” to “partnership.” We made that change because “membership” sounds like something you do at a country club. That’s not what we wanted membership to mean. We wanted it to be a partnership with our mission: to ignite authentic life in Christ by connecting (with God and others), growing (in the character of Christ), and serving (our church, community and world). Partners say, “I want to help advance that mission in this world. I want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I want to be part of a faith community that is curious about God, creative in all that we do, and compassionate to everyone.”

Our process of partnership begins with Pizza with the Pastor. I know what you’re thinking: is pizza really good for a Bod4God? Well, it depends on what kind of pizza you eat and how much you eat. A couple of pieces of pizza loaded down with veggies is a great nutritious meal. Pizza with the pastor happens every fourth Sunday and Monday and pizza is on me. You get a chance to get to know me and other new people at SCC.

The next step of partnership is to take SCC 101, 201, and 301. These happen on the first, second, and third Sundays and Mondays, and you can take them in any order you want. 101 has to do with connecting to God and others. 201 has to do with growing in the character of Christ. 301 has to do with serving the church, community, and world. We eat pizza and work through some ideas that are very specific to SCC.

One last step of partnership is to be baptized. We’ll baptize people any time of the year, but our big baptism happens at the end of June with Baptism at the Beach. There’s a nine-session small group that prepares you to be baptized, to baptize your child, or reaffirm your baptism if you were baptized as an infant or have fallen away from God since your baptism. This small group is called Christianity 101. It’s also great for those who really want to go deep in their faith. It begins in March and runs for nine sessions through June. Baptism is the sign and seal of being a part of God’s family.

It’s hard to do it alone. Partner with SCC and put us on your encouragement team.

5. Ex-Team
Let’s be honest. There are some people on your team right now who you need to get off your team. The book of Proverbs says:

Stay away from fools, for you won’t find knowledge on their lips.
Proverbs 14:7 NLT

No pun intended! Now I have moles throughout the entire church, and I was sent this picture this past week from one of our small groups that is supposed to be encouraging one another to have a Bod4God. I’ve blurred out the faces to protect the guilty.

Flagrant foul! Twenty-yard penalty! I know I just mixed sports lingo, and that’s why you don’t want me on your referee team. And there are some people you don’t want on your Bod4God team. Who in your family is always egging you on to eat another cookie? Who among your friends is always telling you another piece of fried chicken won’t hurt. Who do you work with who is always trying to get you to go to the after work party where you know there’ll be lots of junk food you shouldn’t eat? I’m not telling you to no longer associate with these people, but you will need to find a way to not let them influence you as much as they have. They’re not on your Bod4God team. Treat them like tax collectors and Gentiles! It’s hard to do it alone. Who do you need to add to or subtract from your Bod4God team?

Partnership
Today we have several people joining the SCC team. They’ve all taken SCC 101, 201, and 301, and they’re ready to make a commitment today to partner with SCC in our mission: to ignite authentic life in Christ. These are the commitments they make today to be on our team:

Partnership Vows
Tom: Do you seek to avoid evil and do good?
Partners: I do.

Tom: Do you confess Jesus as Savior and Lord in community with the church?
Partners: I do.

Tom: Will you stay in love with God?
Partners: By God’s grace, I will

Tom: Do you commit to connecting with God through worship and others through small groups?
Partners: I do.

Tom: Do you commit to growing deeper in the character of Christ through spiritual practices and H.A.B.I.T.S.?
Partners: I do.

Tom: Do you commit to serving the church, community and world with your time, talent, treasure, testimony, and temple?
Partners: I do.

To the church
Tom: Do you as the body of Christ, the church, reaffirm your own desire to avoid evil, do good, and stay in love with God?
Church: We do.

Tom: Do you commit to connecting with God and one another, growing in the character of Christ, and serving the church, community and world?
Church: We do.

Tom: Will you nurture one another and these new partners in the Christian faith and life, and surround them with a community of love and forgiveness?
Church: We will.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: diet, exercise, self-control, teamwork, weight loss

Bod4God – Inspiration

February 11, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Bod4God – Inspiration
Sycamore Creek Church
February 9/10, 2014
Tom Arthur
Colossians 1:28-29

How do you find the motivation and perseverance to stay healthy when you’re constantly getting knocked around in the obstacle course of life? That’s the problem I want to wrestle with today. Where do you find your inspiration? Sometimes we find our inspiration through social media, but then we have this problem:

Actually, I had something like this happen to me recently. I wear a pedometer because I find it helps keep me motivated to be active each day. Well, the other day I met someone at the mall and we had a “walking meeting.” We walked the entire circuit of the mall twice including all the department stores. It was a good hour to hour and a half or so. I aim for 10,000 steps a day, and I probably took 15,000 steps. After we wrapped up our walking and meeting, I realized I had left my pedometer at home! My workout was worthless! So later that night I went home and figured out how to fix the situation. I sat in my comfy chair and attached my pedometer to my three-year-old son. This was such a brilliant idea that I do it now every night and easily hit my 10,000 step goal each day!

Ok. All kidding aside. Let’s turn to the Bible and see if we can find any inspiration there for making healthy choices in how we treat our body. Paul, the first missionary of the church, wrote a letter to the church at Colosse and this is what he said:

It is Christ whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature [teleios] in Christ. For this I toil and struggle with all the energy [energeia] that he powerfully [dynamis] inspires [energe?] within me.
Colossians 1:28-29 NRSV

Now you thought you were walking into a physical exercise class today but you ended up walking into a Greek grammar class. I’m sorry. I’m a geek. I gave you several of the Greek words behind the English translation because they give us a sense of what we’re aiming for and what kind of inspiration we need to get there.

First, we’re aiming at “teleios.” Teleios means several things including:

Brought to its end, finished
Wanting nothing necessary to completeness
Consummate human integrity and virtue

In short, teleios is complete maturity.

Second, Paul talks about three kinds of energy: energia, dynamis, and energe?. Energia is superhuman power. Dynamis is inherent power or human power. Energe? means to aid or work for one to accomplish something. Thus, inspiration is = Energia energe? dynamis or supernatural power aiding our own power to bring about total and complete maturity in mind, soul, and body! That’s the kind of inspiration we need, right?

Here’s the whole point of today’s message: We need the inspiration of supernatural power mixed with practical insight for today. So where do you find supernatural power and practical insight? The good news is that we have an abundance of both.

1. Biblical Principles
Last week we looked at two biblical principles that are essential to having a Bod4God. First, your body is a temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Second, you begin by dedicating (devoting and disciplining) your body to God (2 Chronicles 7:5). It all starts here. Have you dedicated your whole body, your whole life to God? Biblical principles provide the inspiration of supernatural power aiding your own human power.

2. Past Leaders
You may think that only modern health leaders can inspire you to healthy choices. You would be wrong. Let’s look to Clement of Alexandria, a second and third century church leader. He said, “We must guard against those articles of food which persuade us to eat when we are not hungry, bewitching the appetite.” I’m sure Clement was talking about BBQ or Ranch potato chips. Or maybe gummy bears. OK, he wasn’t. The food has changed but the basic problem hasn’t. Some kinds of food call us to eat whether we’re hungry or not. You could lose a lot of weight just by eating only when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re not hungry.

Then there’s John Wesley, the 18^th century founder of Methodism. Wesley said, “Every day of your life take at least an hour’s exercise, between breakfast and dinner. If you will, take another hour before supper, or before you sleep. If you can, take it in the open air; otherwise, in the house. If you cannot ride or walk abroad, use within a dumb-bell or a wooden horse. If you have not strength to do this for an hour at a time, do it at twice or thrice. Let nothing hinder you. Your life is at stake. Make everything yield to this” (Thoughts on Nervous Disorders). Yeah, he’s from the 18^th century but he knew something about living a healthy lifestyle by making sure you get enough exercise. The man lived to be 88 when the average life expectancy was between 35-40!

Past leaders provide the inspiration of supernatural power aiding your own human power.

3. Spiritual Practices
Have you thought about praying for your health? I’m not talking about praying after you’ve gotten sick. I’m talking about praying when you’re tempted to not do what you should do? Pray before, during, and after temptation. Pray for self discipline when you know you’ll be in a situation where you’ll be tempted to make unhealthy choices.

Have you thought about memorizing Bible passages to help you make healthy choices?

Jesus fought off temptation in the desert with scripture that he had memorized. He didn’t have a smart phone to Google the question: “What does scripture say about fasting for forty days and being tempted by the Devil?” He had it in his head, and he resisted the temptation to destroy the work of God for the sake of food by quoting scripture to himself and the Devil.

What about worship? Do you regularly attend worship so that you’re filled with God’s power to be able to resist the temptations of unhealthy choices and filled with inspiration to take care of your body?

Simplicity is a practice that has been used for thousands of years. Our culture wants more…more…more…more. How much is enough? A little bit more. Following Jesus means living a simple life where what you have is enough. You don’t need all that food and all that rich food because you eat in a simple manner that is sufficient to meet your basic needs.

Then there’s fasting. Ah…fasting. Fasting is not an attempt to lose weight. That’s called a diet. Fasting is giving up something good in order to attain something better. You fast not to lose weight but to break the power of pleasure. Back to Clement who said, “By keeping pleasures under command we prevent lusts.” Lent is coming up. Have you considered fasting from something during Lent?

The last practice I want to look at today is baptism. In baptism we die to ourselves and we are raised with Christ. When we go under the water we enter the tomb with Jesus. When we come out of the water we are raised with Jesus. We are made new. The old self dies. The new self is resurrected. We are given new power to resist the temptations in our life. At Sycamore Creek Church we do a nine session small group to help you prepare for baptism called Christianity 101. You can join this small group if you want to be baptized, if you were baptized as an infant or at some other time in your life and you want to reaffirm your baptism, or if you just want to go deeper in your faith. Have you been baptized? Do you want to follow Jesus? Why not be baptized this summer at our Baptism @ the Beach.

Spiritual practices provide the inspiration of supernatural power aiding your own human power.

4. Pronouncement of Judgment
Did you know there will be a day of judgment? There will be a day when we stand before God and our life will be weighed, no pun intended. Paul says:

For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
Romans 14:10 NRSV

You cannot earn God’s love, but your life’s work will be shown for what it is. Like a refiners fire, God’s judgment will burn away all the impurities and that which is pure and holy and righteous will be left standing before God. On that day I want to hear God say, “Well done good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21 NIV).

What will be judged? We usually talk about four things: how did you use your time, talent, treasure and testimony. But maybe we should add a fifth: temple. How did you care for the temple of God that is your body?

The proclamation of judgment provides the inspiration of supernatural power aiding your own human power.

5. Passion of Christ
The word “passion” literally means “to suffer.” Thus, the passion of Christ refers to the suffering of Christ in his crucifixion and death. Jesus suffered in his body to accomplish God’s purposes in your life and all of our lives. That was Jesus’ passion. What is your passion? If you’re like most of our culture, which most of us are, then your passion is to indulge our pleasures until we suffer in our health. Friends, this is not what Jesus died for. Jesus did not suffer so that we could indulge our pleasures to the point of suffering. Jesus suffered so that God could work in us.

The passion of Christ provides the inspiration of supernatural power aiding your own human power.

6. Practical Wisdom
So far we’ve been mostly talking about supernatural power. Now I want to talk about the power inherent in each of you. Where do you find practical wisdom for taking care of your body? And how does that practical wisdom inspire you? Here are a couple of thoughts mixed with some of my own tips and tricks.

First, what will be your legacy? Will your health allow you to invest in the spiritual lives of your grandchildren? What about your great grandchildren? I told you last week I was in a car accident four years ago and had significant back pain because of it. I could only hold my newborn son for one or two minutes without pain. The desire to be able to invest significantly in his life inspired me to stick with physical therapy for almost two years to get back in shape to the point of not having any more back pain. Now I can do just about whatever I want with him. My legacy in and through Micah inspired me.

Second, what is your testimony or witness to others? When people get to know you, do they give thanks to God because of the choices you are making in taking care of your body? Or if you have some kind of birth handicap or something that you didn’t have any choice about, is the way you’re currently treating your body and is your attitude about your body brining glory to God? Is your body a temple pointing your friends and family to God?

Third, recognize that you’re not going to look like a model. You won’t look like a model because models don’t look like models either. The image you see in an ad is not a real human being. It is a photoshopped icon and symbol. Give up on trying to be like a fake image of a model.

Fourth, set realistic goals. A healthy weight loss is one to two pounds a week. That means if you’re trying to lose fifty to a hundred pounds it is going to an entire year! You don’t get into this situation quickly. You won’t get out of it quickly either.

Fifth, measure. We pay attention to what we measure. It has been shown over and over again that people who wear pedometers are more active. So pick up a cheap pedometer and wear it. I also weigh myself daily. I then write it down in my journal. Last Sunday I weighed 166.6. On Monday I weight 167.2. On Tuesday I weighed 165.6. It’s natural for your weight to fluctuate two or three pounds. I weigh daily because it causes me no anxiety. I realize women come to a scale with very different expectations. Perhaps if weighing daily causes you extreme anxiety, then you should weigh yourself weekly. I also keep a food journal. I simply write down what I eat each day and any exercise I do. I do this because I used to use Weight Watchers, and I got into the habit of it. Now I can do it and have educated myself enough that I don’t really need Weight Watchers anymore. Just writing it down is enough.

Sixth, when it comes to eating, I try to always have lots of fruit around. I snack on fruit when I’m hungry. I also like to have lots of healthy snacks around. Pretzels, tortilla chips and salsa. When I go get the tortilla chips bag, I count out one serving and put it on a plate. Then I put the bag back in the pantry. If I didn’t do this, I would eat the entire bag! I don’t buy temptation food. I just keep it out of the house. I have no discipline when it comes to candy. So I don’t buy it. I’m having a particularly hard time right now with this one because we’re using M&Ms to help potty train Micah. I always think I deserve a handful of M&Ms too when he goes potty. Then I deserve a handful a little later too. And another handful before I go to bed. Before I know it, I’ve eaten the entire bowl of M&Ms, and we no longer have any rewards for Micah’s potty training! So I generally keep temptation foods out of the house. I drink mostly water. I drink little to no pop or soda. I’d prefer to eat my calories than drink them. And I’m skeptical of the long-term affects of all those ingredients with names I can’t pronounce in diet drinks.

Seventh, Sarah and I are “flexitarians.” We’re not complete vegetarians. We are mostly vegetarians. Or we are significantly vegetarians. We like meat, but you can’t eat hamburger for every meal and expect to be healthy. So we eat many meals that have no meat in them. But Friday night is date night and date night is eat-whatever-the-heck-you-want night. It’s my “cheat night.” Steak and Shake meal: steak burger with cheese, fries, salad with blue cheese dressing, and a shake. Then a movie and popcorn. One night a week I give up the discipline and celebrate life with my wife. I can’t do that every night, but I can do it one night a week and doing it one night a week makes it that much more special.

Eighth, I have a covenant with my pants: I will never leave them nor forsake them. I let the discomfort of tight pants inspire me to lose weight. I don’t buy a bigger set of pants. I’ve been wearing 34 inch waist pants for most of my married life. My wedding pants are 29 inch waist. I can’t really fit into them anymore. But that’s OK. 34 inch is a good healthy spot for me to be in.

Here’s my last practical inspiration. When it comes to exercise I try to do little things that add up. I do walking meetings with anyone that I can meet and walk and talk all at the same time. I always take the stairs in buildings. I park in the back corner of the parking lot to get some extra steps in. I exercise with my kids by taking them sledding or hiking or biking. If you don’t have kids, you can borrow mine. They’ll give you a good workout. I walk in the mall in the winter (and I don’t buy stuff!). I try to shovel the driveway and sidewalk instead of using the snow blower. I mow the yard myself rather than pay someone to do it. All these little things add up to an active lifestyle.

Practical wisdom provides the inspiration of supernatural power aiding your own human power.

So you can’t do all these things tomorrow. You’d be overwhelmed. But what one or two things can you do this week? What inspires you from this message today? Do what you can. Do what you have your own human power to do. Then invite God’s supernatural power to inspire your human power. With God’s help, you can have a Bod4God.

God, inspire our human power with your supernatural aid so that when we stand before you in the day of judgment, we hear you say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” May it be so in the name of Jesus and the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: diet, exercise, fasting, health

Dedication

February 3, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Bod4God – Dedication
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
February 2/3, 2014

You lack discipline friends! Ha! Arnold says something we all know. There’s only one problem with it: discipline isn’t enough. Saying you need “discipline” isn’t enough. “Just do it” doesn’t work. We know what to do, we just don’t do it. Sin, or missing God’s mark, is not just a lack of knowledge, it’s being stuck and unable to save ourselves. And when it comes to our health and weight, we are definitely stuck.

Too many of us are overweight or obese. Those terms are actually technical terms. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), if you are my height, 5’9”, then you have a healthy weight range of 125-168 pounds (Body Mass Index/BMI = 18.5 – 24.9). You are overweight if you are 169-202 pounds (BMI = 25 – 29.9), and you are obese if you are 203 pounds or more (BMI = 30+). (This isn’t completely accurate because some athletes who have a lot of muscle weigh more because muscle weighs more than fat even though their body fat is less.) According to the CDC, one of every three adults (35.7 percent) is clinically obese. When you are overweight or obese you have a higher risk for:

Coronary heart disease
Type 2 diabetes
Cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon)
Hypertension (high blood pressure)
Dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides)
Stroke
Liver and Gallbladder disease
Sleep apnea and respiratory problems
Osteoarthritis (a degeneration of cartilage and its underlying bone within a joint)
Gynecological problems (abnormal menses, infertility)

Just in case that wasn’t enough sad news, here’s some even worse news. According to Ken Ferraro, the lead researcher on a study at Purdue University, “America is becoming a nation of gluttony and obesity, and churches are a feeding ground for this problem”

(http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/june/fitness-driven-church.html). People who attend church are some of the heaviest people in our culture! The church is part of the problem! Another “18-year Northwestern University study released in 2011 found those who attended youth group as teenagers were 50 percent more likely to be obese by the time they were 50 than those who didn’t” (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/june/fitness-driven-church.html). Ouch! And then there’s pastors. According to one study done in North Carolina, “nearly 40 percent of North Carolina’s United Methodist clergy are obese…By comparison, the average North Carolinian in the study fares much better — only 29 percent of North Carolinians are obese” (http://www.faithandleadership.com/features/articles/body-and-soul).

We chose to do this series, Bod4God, because when we did demographic research on the Lansing region we found that one of the top three needs of people in Lansing is health and weight loss. According to the research I just shared, churches have been part of the problem! We wanted to be part of the solution rather than the problem. So we decided to do this series, Bod4God.

Now you may look at me and think, this guy doesn’t know anything about struggle with health and weight. He’s skinny as a stick. One of the churches I worked at in rural North Carolina while I was in seminary took it as a personal challenge to fatten me up over the summer! So let me share with you a little bit about my health history.

When I got married at the ripe age of 23, I went on my honeymoon and came down with Hepatitis A from something I had eaten three or four weeks before I got married. I lost thirteen pounds in three weeks! Then I gained three to five pounds a year through my married life. That’s not that unusual. I’ve been married sixteen years so three to five pounds a year = forty-eight to eighty pounds I’ve put on since I got married. That’s enough weight to put me in the obese category. The only difference is that I have also lost three to five pounds a year through my married life. I have never let the weight add up before deciding to take it off. One reason I did this was because of family. My uncle recently died of complications to obesity (and lots of other things). My dad is currently suffering complications of obesity as he wrestles with diabetes and various other things. My brother is overweight if not obese. Add that family history in to the fact that I have a serious sweet tooth with no discipline. My mother-in-law once found out that I like Gummy Bears so she bought one of those bulk containers at Sam’s Club. I was ecstatic when I saw them, and to the horror of my mother-in-law, I ate the entire bulk container of Gummy Bears in one sitting. She never bought me Gummy Bears again! I was reading through the Proverbs, the book of wisdom in the Bible, and came across this one:

If you have found a bulk container of Gummy Bears, eat only enough for you, or else, having too much, you will vomit it.
Proverbs 25:16 NRSV

Ok, it doesn’t say “Gummy Bears.” It says honey. But both are true.

When it comes to exercise, lately I’ve had a lot of motivations not to exercise. I was in a car accident three years ago with some fairly significant back pain complications. When my first son, Micah, was born, I couldn’t hold him for more than a minute or two without back pain. I also have a degenerative disk in my neck that is painful, especially in the cold. I used to be very active in sports as a teenager, but now I mostly sit at a computer or at a table drinking coffee and talking to people.

I share all of that not to throw a pity party for Tom. I share it with you so that you know that I struggle with these issues too. I may not look like it, but I pay a lot of attention to my health and weight. So what I want to share with you today is where to start. Where do you begin when it comes to improving your health and getting your weight under control? And remember, even though Arnold says you lack discipline, you can’t start with discipline. Discipline isn’t enough. You’ve got to start somewhere else. So where? Let’s turn to the Bible, the oldest health book in the world, and we’ll see two basic principles about our health and weight.

Principle 1: Your Body Is a Temple of God
Paul, the first missionary of the church wrote a letter to the church in Corinth, and told them about their bodies. Here’s what he said:

Or do you (y’all) not know that your (y’all’s) body is a temple [temple, inner part of Jewish temple, sanctuary] of the Holy Spirit within you (y’all), which you (y’all) have from God, and that you (y’all) are not your (y’all’s) own? For you (y’all) were bought with a price; therefore glorify [praise, honor; glorify, exalt] God in your (y’all’s) body.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NRSV

That’s from the “New Revised Southern Version” of the Bible. English lacks a plural form of “you” but Greek, the language that Paul was writing in, has a very clear plural from of “you” and all the “yous” in this passage are plural. He’s saying that the people who make up the church are a body that is the temple of God’s Spirit. The church shouldn’t be part of the problem, the church should be part of the solution because together our bodies are where God’s Spirit resides. Our bodies together are the temple of God! Some of our bodies are the columns, some are the walls, some are the roof, some are the floor, and some are the foundation. How is your body doing at playing its part in the temple of God? The first principle is that our bodies, and your body, are God’s temple.

Principle 2: To Lose You Must Dedicate Your Body to God
So if our bodies are a temple of God, what should we do with them? Exactly what you do with a temple: you dedicate it to God! King Solomon, one of the ancient and wisest kings of Israel, also had the distinction of being the first king to build a temple in Jerusalem for God. Here’s what we read about it:

King Solomon offered as a sacrifice twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated [Chanak] the house of God.
2 Chronicles 7:5 NRSV

The word in Hebrew that is translated “dedicate” is Chanak. Chanak has two meanings. First, chanak means “to train up.” You get this sense in this Proverb:

Train [Chanak] children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.
Proverbs 22:6 NRSV

Train up your body in the right way, and when old, it will not stray. This is the discipline part of health and weight loss. But it’s where most of us both begin and end. We lack discipline so we fail at taking care of our bodies, of dedicating them as temples to God.

The second meaning of chanak is “to initiate or begin.” This has the sense of an offering or to give, donate, bestow, set aside, grant, devote, commit, or surrender. To dedicate your body is to give it up to God, to initiate it as belonging not to you but donating it to God. If your body is God’s temple, then it’s supposed to reflect something about God. Here’s the whole point of this message:

The Point
Discipline begins with dedication.

If you begin with discipline but neglect dedication, you will likely fail. You must first dedicate your body and your entire life to God as God’s temple. Have you dedicated your whole life to God including your body?

Is Being Fat a Sin?
I think this raises an important question: Is being fat a sin? Is not looking like the latest celebrity a sin? Are we all supposed to be able to wear a size 0 dress or a muscle shirt with bulging buns and guns? And what about people who have disabilities of some sort? Is someone in a wheel chair less a temple of God than someone who is not? Absolutely not. It’s not so much a matter of being skinny and perfect as it is a matter of what you’re doing with the body God gave you.

Back to Paul. He says in a letter to the church at Rome:

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.
Romans 14:20 NRSV

So here’s my question to you: is the way you’re treating your body contributing to the work of God in and through you or is it destroying the work of God in and through you? Is your cuisine getting in the way of your calling? Are your muscles getting in the way of your mission? Is your food getting in the way of your function? Is your health getting in the way of your heart’s passion? Are your provisions getting in the way of your purpose? Is your grub getting in the way of your goal? Is your stir-fry getting in the way of your service? Are your victuals getting in the way of your vocation?

Ok, so I spent too much time in a thesaurus to write that last paragraph. But the point still stands: is the way you are taking care of your body getting in the way of God’s work in and through your life? If it is, then yes, you are missing God’s mark for your life. But if you have dedicated your body to God and you are training it up and disciplining it to the best of your ability and knowledge, then your temple is bringing glory to God whether it looks like Natalie Portman or Chris Hemsworth or not, and for most of us the answer to that question will be “not.”

So here’s what I want you to do. First, dedicate your health, your body, your weight, your exercise, your walking, your running, your drinking all to God! Take care of God’s temple. Do this by giving your whole life to God by following Jesus! Then join one of the Bod4God groups in our church over the next three months. You’ll find all twenty-one of them listed below. The big group is the challenge group. Every week you’ll have the opportunity to worship at 9:30AM then go to the challenge group at 11:00AM that meets in the library. This is a Biggest-Loser-like weight loss and health competition run by Dr. Amanda Shoemaker. Then throughout the week you can join a small group support group and an activity group. There’s groups for men, women, young adults, those with special dietary needs, couples, and more. They happen all across the week at all kinds of times. Kick it all off today by going to a healthy Super Bowl party also listed below.

The Church – The Temple of God
Now here’s some good news. Dr. Harold Koenig, the director of the center for spirituality and health at Duke University, has been researching the role of faith in health for several decades and has found that people who regularly practice their faith are in general more healthy than those who do not have faith practices. In an email exchange he said to me, “What is amazing is the health benefits of religious involvement, despite the problem with weight!” Friends, faith and faith practices has a positive effect on our health. What if the church was known as a community that exercised not just your soul but also your body? What if the church was known as a community that got your soul in shape and your body in shape? What if? Maybe we’d have more people dedicating their lives to Jesus!

God, may it be so in these bodies, the temple of God!

Bod4God Groups – Join a Bunch of Losers!

Tired of endless weight-loss plans and endless years of trying to get the numbers on that scale to start moving downward? Weary of trying to find the motivation to live a healthy lifestyle? You’ve come to the right place. During February Sycamore Creek Church will be helping you find the right D.I.E.T. – Dedication, Inspiration, Eating & Exercising, and Teamwork. What have you got to lose? Weight! What have you got to gain? A Bod4God!

Sycamore Creek Church is one church in two locations. We meet on Sunday mornings at Lansing Christian School (3405 Belle Chase Way) @ 9:30 & 11:15 AM and Monday nights at Jackie’s Diner (3812 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd) @ 7:00PM. For more info visit www.sycamorecreekchurch.org

Participants in the any group are eligible for:

Original Okinawan Karate in Holt: FREE month for any adult or child or 12-weeks for a REDUCED price of $100 (includes uniform!).

Sign-up on the Connection Card in worship or email the group leader!

Pick up a book for $15 in the Connection Café on Sunday or at the diner on Monday.

#1. Challenge Group (Biggest Loser-like Competition & Health Campaign)
Sundays at 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM
Come worship at 9:30, drop your kids at Bod4God4Kids and then hang out for the Challenge Group during the second service while your kids go to Kids Creek! Videos each week with health experts, weigh ins, and team support time.
Amanda Shoemaker, MD and Amy Kremkow, LCS
(shoemakermd@gmail.com) (akremkow418@yahoo.com)

#2. Bod4God4Kids
Sundays at 9:30 AM @ Lansing Christian School (during worship)
Julie Soltis (juliesoltis@sycamorecreekchurch.org)

Activity Groups (Anyone)

#3. Running – Thursdays at 7:00 PM @ Hawk Island Park, Jon Rennhack (Rennhac2@msu.edu)

#4. Indoor Walking – Fridays at 9:30 AM @ Meridian Mall Playground
(Kids welcome, bring a stroller!) Tom Arthur (tomarthur@sycamorecreekchurch.org)

#5. Run/Walk – Saturdays at 9 AM @ Hawk Island Park, Emily Vliek (ekvliek@gmail.com)

#6. 5K – Autism Acceptance 5K, April 26 (www.autism-mi.org/Events/5KRun.aspx)

#7. Bike Bonanza on the River Trail – Saturday, May 3 at 1PM @ Maguire Park
Tabitha Martin (humdeelah@yahoo.com)

Young Adults
#8. Friday @ 2:30PM @ Holt Biggby, Justin Kring (kringjustin@gmail.com)

Seniors and Special Dietary Needs
#9. Mondays at 5:30 PM @ Jackie’s Diner (Healthy menu options available!)
Bev Sadilek (bsad1@sbcglobal.net) & Terri Horn (4cats4283@sbcglobal.net)

Anyone
#10. Fridays at 12:00 PM @ Sparrow – St. Lawrence Campus Cafeteria
Amy Kremkow (akremkow418@yahoo.com)

#20. Fridays at 11:30AM Lunch @ Farm Bureau Insurance on 7373 West Saginaw
Mary Ziegler (mziegle@fbinsmi.com)

#11. Agnostic Pub Group 1^st and 3^rd Thursdays at 8PM @ Pizza House
Discussing The Healing Power of Faith: How Belief and Prayer Can Help You Triumph Over Disease by Harold Koenig and Malcolm McConnell
Tom Arthur (tomarthur@sycamorecreekchurch.org) & Bill Vliek (billvliek@gmail.com)

Men
#12. Every other Wednesday at 7:00 AM @ Original Okinawa Karate in Holt
Mark Aupperlee (m_aupperlee@hotmail.com)

#13. Mondays at 6:00 PM @ The Avenue Café (Michigan St.), Kevin Biesbrock (kbiesbrock@gmail.com)

#14. Every other Thursday at 7:00 PM @ a Holt Home, Mark Aupperlee (m_aupperlee@hotmail.com)

#15. Every other Thursday at 7:00 PM @ a Holt Home, Bob Trout (troutrob@juno.com)

Women
#16. 2^nd & 4^th Wednesdays at 7:00 PM @ a Holt Home, Barb Flory (barbflory@gmail.com)

#17. Wednesdays at 7:00 PM @ Fazoli’s (S. Cedar), Tabitha Martin (humdeelah@yahoo.com)

#18. Knitting – 1st and 3rd Mondays at 6:00 PM @ SCC Office
Tammie Oates (tammie@toates.net) and Alice McKinstry (alicecleansweep@comcast.net)

Couples
#19. Select Sundays @ a Holt Home, John & Teresa Miller (rbkids@yahoo.com)

Dads
#21. Dad Kid Night Out – 2^nd Tuesdays @ 5:30-7:30 PM
Jeremy Kratky (jeremykratky@sycamorecreekchurch.org)
February – Hawk Island Sledding · March – Extreme Fun @ Meridian Mall · April – Potter Park Zoo

Healthy Super Bowl Parties
Sunday, February 2
Bring a health snack to share!

John & Teresa Miller
Holt home @ 6PM

Tom & Sarah Arthur
Holt home @ 6PM

StuREV (Youth) Chuck & Debbie Bird
Holt home @ 5:30PM

Oates & Kelley Families
Holt home @ 6PM

sycamorecreekchurch.org · 517-394-6100 facebook.com/sycamorecreekchurchmi

Filed Under: Manuscripts

Failing Forward

January 28, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Samson – Failing Forward *
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
January 26/27, 2013

Peace friends!

Today we wrap up a series on the life of Samson. Samson was a judge of Israel, a kind of tribal leader. He was dedicated from before his birth to save God’s people from the Philistines. Samson is one of the most frustrating characters in the Bible. He was given so much from God, but messed up again and again and again. We’ve learned over the last three weeks that Samson:

Was an incredibly strong man with a destructively weak will;
Was emotion driven, not Spirit-led;
Ruined his life one step at a time.

In the end he had his eyes gouged out, was put in shackles, and was relegated to grinding a mill. The question we want to wrestle with today is this:

What do you do when you realize you’ve blown it?

What do you do when you’ve done something you can’t undo, when you’ve hurt people you’ve loved, or when you’ve lost all your money?

In this series I’ve been speaking especially to the men in our church. That’s not to say that women don’t blow it. But there is something a little bigger that happens when a man blows it. That’s because women receive value in relationships. As long as the relationship is intact at the end of the day, all is well. On the other hand, men tend to like being liked, but it’s not everything. Men tend to receive value in accomplishments. At times even relationships are considered “accomplishments.” Men want respect. Generally speaking, a man’s greatest fear is failure and his greatest pain is regret.

Men are told to measure up, be successful, live up to your own or others expectations. And we don’t. We hold regrets. You have to tell your faithful wife about your online porn addiction or your office affair. You are in a career that feels beneath you while your friends are doing better. You regret not marrying someone, and now you’re alone years later. Your marriage is pathetic, and you know it and are resigned to it and don’t do anything about it. You’ve failed inwardly by not living up to a promise made to yourself or God: “I’ll never do it again”…until Thursday. What regrets do you carry?

Here’s a truth to wrap your mind around: A failure is an event, never a person. Samson failed over and over and over again, and God still accomplished his purposes through him. Just because you’re down, doesn’t mean your out. Let’s look and see what happens when Samson is down.

Judges 16:23-26 NRSV
Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon, and to rejoice; for they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.”

And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, and let him entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. They made him stand between the pillars; and Samson said to the attendant who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, so that I may lean against them.”

Here’s the context. The Philistines are gathered in a coliseum-like temple that holds between 3000 and 5000 people. They’re there to worship their god Dagon, the god of the harvest who has a man head and fish body. They’re recounting how Samson has caused them all kinds of problems remembering the foxes and jawbone incidents. And now Samson is told to perform for their entertainment. It doesn’t get any lower than this! Samson is surely at the bottom of his life as a failure.

Remorse
There are two responses to failure I want to explore today. The natural response to failure is remorse: “I feel bad about what I did.” Too often men stop here. Inward they say, “I’m a failure.” Outward they say, “I’m a victim. It’s all someone else’s fault.” There is a better response to failure than remorse.

Repentance
The better response to failure is repentance. Repentance is one of those really churchy words, isn’t it? It conjures images of street corner preachers on soap boxes with bull horns. “Repent you sinners. You’re going to burn and fry in hell!” But that’s not necessarily what a biblical idea of repentance is.

There are two words in the Bible that get translated as repentance. The first is the Greek word “metnoia.” Metnoia means to change one’s heart and mind. The second is the Hebrew word “shuv.” Shuv means to turn. So repentance can be understood as changing one’s heart and mind in a way that leads to turning ones life in a different direction. It’s not just an intellectual or emotional thing. Although it includes both. It’s not just an action thing. But it definitely includes action. It is an inward change that results in an outward change. It is being convinced that you are going the wrong way and turning around and going the other way. It means owning your fault. “It’s my fault. I blew it.” Then turning away from that which you did that was wrong and turning toward that which you know to be right. You ruin your life one step at a time, but when you repent you turn around and point your life back in the right direction.

Repentance doesn’t always mean that everything gets better quick. There are some things that are hard to undo. There are even some things you can’t undo. When Sarah and I had our first boy, Micah, I took lots of pictures during labor. When I got home but before I caught up on sleep, I uploaded them to iPhoto on my iMac computer. Now iPhoto has a feature where you can instantly upload pictures you choose to share on Facebook. I thought I carefully selected some photos to share on Facebook but what I did instead was shared all the photos on Facebook! I realized my mistake only when I got a notification from Facebook that one of the teenagers in our church had commented on the album saying, “Wow. Thanks for sharing such intimate moments with us.” I did my best to quickly pull the photos off of Facebook, but to those of you who were subjected to my mistake, I apologize. Actually, I should apologize to my wife! Very few pictures were actually of me!

Thankfully I could undo that mistake for the most part. But there are moments in our digital culture when you can’t undo it, like this commercial:

While you can’t “unsend,” you can repent. You can be both motivated to change and actually change your behavior. You can remember who you were created to be—you were created to honor and glorify God with your life—and you can choose to honor and glorify God with your life. You can choose not to let what you did keep you from doing what God wants you to do now. You cannot change the past, but you can change your future with God’s help.

Samson realizes that he’s blown it pretty hard, and he prays to God:

Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Judges 16:28 NIV

Samson prays, “God, I only need one more chance.” Is this prayer of Samson’s about Samson or about God? It seems to me that it is still about Samson’s revenge. Sometimes when we’re down and out and feel the remorse of failure, we pray to God out of desperation, but we don’t really want to live a new life. We want God to make it all right. We want our lives back.

Here’s the amazing moment of God’s grace. Even in the mixed motives of Samson’s last prayer and in our own mixed motives, God is gracious and merciful. Even in our failures, God can still accomplish his purposes. God’s purpose in Samson’s life was to start to deliver Israel from the Philistines. The Israelites had begun to so closely assimilate into Philistine culture that they were close to being indistinguishable. God used Samson’s failures to save God’s people from being absorbed into the broader culture and lost forever.

God strengthened Samson again. Friends, you have the same Spirit living in you that raised Christ from the dead! Sure you messed up. Sure you feel weak. Sure you feel remorse. But Jesus was dead. No pulse. Down and out. There’s no coming back from that. And God raised him from the dead! So you messed up. That’s makes your story even better!

Men, it’s time to push some pillars down. What pillars do you need to push down? How are you going to do it? You’ve got a pillar of pride in your life: I can handle it. Push it down. Say, “I need help. I’m alone. I messed up. I don’t know how to get out.” Tell someone you need help! You’ve got a pillar of anger in your life: I’m mad at the world; I’m mad at myself. Push it down. Get a counselor. Read a book about anger. Find a mentor who has overcome their anger. You’ve got a pillar of slacker spirituality in your life: you’re an occasional attender at worship. Don’t just feel bad about it. Turn around and get to worship regularly. You’ve got a pillar of a dead marriage in your life. So be honest about it and set up a good time to have an honest talk with your wife and recommit to new positive behaviors. Find a couple you appreciate and have them mentor you. Go to a marriage retreat. Pick up a book or audio CD or listen to marriage sermons. You’ve got a pillar of debt in your life. Push it down! Tighten the belt. Set a budget. Break greed by giving generously the full tithe or more. What pillar or pillars need to be pushed down in your life?

Now we can’t ignore one crucial fact about the end of Samson’s life. It was a suicide. Is that how you push down the pillar? You just decide that you’re so far gone that this world would be better off without you? Yes, Samson took his life, and God ended an age of judges ruling Israel. He was the last. God then brought in the age of the Kings. But here’s the hitch. Suicide is easy. You give your life one time. Here’s what’s hard: give your life daily. They give their lives to God daily. They give their lives to their wives daily. They give their lives to their kids daily. They give their lives to their church daily. They give their lives to their community daily. They give their lives to the job daily. Real men give their lives daily so that God’s purposes might come true in their own lives and the lives of those around them. Real men push down the pillars that get in the way of God’s purposes daily. Are you pushing down pillars today?

Here’s the first pillar you need to push down: give up your life. Give it up to the one who has already given up his life for you. Give it up to the one who showed his love for us by dying not just for friends but for his enemies. Give your life up to following Jesus and his way. How do you do that? You ask Jesus to be your forgiver and leader. You give your failures to him and you say, “Jesus, forgive me for the things I have done wrong.” Then you let him lead you. You say, “Jesus, I give you my entire life to lead. Do with me as it pleases you.” Then you get in the adventure of the rescue mission that Jesus has begun here on this earth, helping others push down the pillars in their lives. Are you ready?

God may it be true in the lives of the men at Sycamore Creek Church. May you use the men in our church to push down the pillars daily in their own lives and the lives of others around us. Push down the pillars that keep us from being fully committed to you. In the name of Jesus and the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen!

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

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: failure, grace, honesty, men, mercy, remorse, repentance

Small Steps Toward Big Destruction

January 20, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Samson – Small Steps Toward Big Destruction *
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
January 19/20, 2014
Judges 16

Peace friends!

Today we continue in a series exploring the life of Samson, one of the strongest men who ever lived on the earth. We’re applying the lessons to the men around us, but many of the principles are true for women too. And women can also learn more about the men in their lives so that they know better how to partner with and pray for them.

Samson was chosen by God before he was even born to deliver his people, the Israelites, from their enemies, the Philistines. He was called a “judge” in his day, and a “judge” was kind of like a tribal leader. He had so much potential but he wasted it away on lust, entitlement, and pride. We learned the last two weeks that Samson was:

An incredibly strong man with a dangerously weak will (Satan likes to make strong men weak, but God makes weak men strong).
Emotion driven, not Spirit-led (when a man lets his deepest need drive him to God, God meets his deepest need).

Samson led Israel for 20 years, a very long time. So how can a man with so much potential, end up so poorly? Here’s a key thought for the day:

Samson didn’t mess up his life all at once, he did it one step at a time.

Let’s see how Samson’s life plays out one step at a time. We read:

One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her.
Judges 16:1 NIV

Here we go. One day. What happened one day? Here’s what happened. Samson walked to Gaza. Gaza is the headquarters of the Philistines and is 25 miles from his hometown. 25 miles. To walk 25 miles would take 56,250 steps. That’s 56,250 steps to destruction. 56,250 opportunities to stop.

No guy starts out saying, “In ten years I want to be a sex addict, obsessed in a fantasy world that is destroying my real world.” It begins one day with a step: seeing an ad on Facebook. Step. Clicking the ad through to a youtube video. Step. Picking up the SI swimsuit issue. Step. Going a little deeper with softcore porn. Step. Going further with hardcore porn. Step. Consuming porn all…the…time. STEP!

No guy starts out saying, “I want to go broke and bankrupt and have to beg for bucks.”

It begins one day with a step: a daily $4 coffee on the credit card. Step. Buying a new car. Step. Buying a boat. Step. Taking out a second mortgage. Step. Gambling to try to fix it all quick. Step. Deciding to start a new business when he can’t even balance his own check book. Step. Bankrupt. STEP!

No guy starts out saying, “I want to destroy my marriage and my family.” It begins one day with a step: looking up an old girlfriend on Facebook. Step. Sending a text. Step. Getting together for lunch. Step. A hug to say goodbye. Step. Jumping in bed. Step. Adultery that destroys your marriage. STEP!

Today we’re going to explore three steps to Samson’s destruction.

Taunting the Enemy
When the Philistines realize that Samson is among them at Gaza they make plans to capture him, but he leaves early in the morning and eludes their trap. But escaping isn’t enough for Samson. He has to insult them in the process. So he rips the doors of the city off their hinges and puts them on a hill for all to see. This is no small feat. This isn’t the hollow core door to your bedroom. The doors to a city were massively reinforced to keep battering rams from breaking in. These things probably weighed 700 or more pounds! It’s like Samson is flipping off his enemies. He’s taunting them and underestimating them.

Friends, too often we taunt and underestimate the enemy. We read in scripture that the enemy of God is out to steal, kill, and destroy and is roaring around like a lion seeking someone to devour (John 10:10). And we pretend that it’s like we’re at the zoo with a powerful cage between us and that lion, so we taunt our enemies.

One day I taunted and seriously underestimated my opponent. I was with my roommate from college, Greg, and my new girlfriend, Sarah, soon to be wife. For some reason, I don’t exactly remember why, I decided to wrestle my roommate. I do know why. I was trying to impress Sarah! And when you’re trying to impress a girl the blood isn’t always flowing to the right parts of the brain. The blood was definitely not flowing to the right part of my brain in that moment, because Greg was not someone you wanted to wrestle with. He was a farm boy from Wisconsin. He grew up wrestling steer into submission and throwing bails of hay onto trucks. The man was and still is cut out of stone. He is the first real person I saw up close and personal who had a real six-pack ab. Not only this but Greg’s primary sport in high school was wrestling! So what was I thinking trying to impress my girl by wrestling with my roommate? He took me down in less than two seconds and held me there long enough to really let the embarrassment set in. It’s the last time I tried to impress Sarah with my physical prowess, or lack thereof. Thankfully Greg was not really out to steal, kill and destroy me. He was my friend after all. But he wasn’t going to let me score a quick point with my girlfriend at his expense.

Friends, too often we treat our enemy the way I treated Greg. We put ourselves in tempting situations and underestimate and taunt the enemy. We struggle with lust and then we go hang out in our girlfriend’s room. We are married but we go out to a club on a business trip out of town. (Side note: do you know that research has shown that most affairs are not caused by marital strife or marital dissatisfaction. Most affairs are caused by opportunity! It’s the affair that causes the marital strife and dissatisfaction. Read more here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201206/promise-promiscuity). We’re taunting the enemy. We know that our family has a history of alcoholism but we decide one drink won’t hurt. Then two. Then three. Then four. Then five, and we’re smashed. We don’t really have the money to buy a new car, but we go walk around the car lot “just window shopping.” The first car I bought in my marriage was bought when I went to just look on the lot. I didn’t plan to buy a car that day, but I got hooked. Paul reminds us:

So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.
1 Corinthians 10:12 NRSV

Friends, don’t taunt the enemy. Don’t underestimate the pitfall. Stay humble.

Rationalizing the Same Old Sin
So far we’ve encountered two Philistine women in Samson’s life. The first we read about last week was someone he wanted to marry. It didn’t go well for anyone involved. The second we just read about was a Philistine prostitute. Two Philistine women and we haven’t even gotten to the most well known Philistine woman: Delilah. But she’s about to come on the scene, and this is the third time that Samson is messing around with a Philistine woman. (Side note: the issue here is not the difference in race. There is no command in the Bible not to marry interracially. The problem is that the Philistines worship another God. The problem is a faith problem, not a race problem.) So we read:

After this he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
Judges 16:4 NRSV

Too many of us say, “This is my one thing…This is no body’s business…I’m not hurting anyone…I’m always just looking…Nobody will find out.” I have a friend who told me the other day that when he first got married he would go to the gym and take his ring off. He took his ring off because there was this cute girl who was there at the gym, and he wanted to make sure he still had “it” even though he was now hitched. So he flirted a little here and there, and it worked. She asked him out. Whoa! She asked out a married guy she didn’t even know was married. The problem here isn’t her problem. The problem is with my friend. He wanted to see if he still had it, and he deceived this young woman in order to meet his own needs of insecurity. Thankfully he manned up to the situation and told her he was married, but the damage was already done. He was taunting the enemy.

Back to Samson:

The lords of the Philistines came to [Delilah] and said to her, “Coax him, and find out what makes his strength so great, and how we may overpower him, so that we may bind him in order to subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
Judges 16:5 NRSV

So she goes to Samson and asks to know his secret. He tells her three different lies to the source of his strength: straps, ropes, and a pin in his hair. Each time she binds him in the way that he says and the Philistines rush in to attack him, and he breaks out of the binding and beats them. The third time he gets pretty close to telling the truth but not quite. It’s like he’s walking up to the line but not crossing.

What amazes me is he keeps this game up. The first time he tells her a secret and she shares it. He does it again. She shares the secret. He does it again. She shares the secret. When will he learn? Too late.

Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times now and have not told me what makes your strength so great.” Finally, after she had nagged him with her words day after day, and pestered him, he was tired to death.
Judges 16:15-16 NRSV

Samson was strong enough to kill a thousand men, lift a 700 pound door, slay a lion, but wasn’t strong enough to lead a woman. Men don’t just be strong in business, hobbies, and sports but be strong leading people to God. Be strong in righteousness, right relationships with God, with others, and with yourself. Samson doesn’t have it. He tells her his true secret:

So he told her his whole secret, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, then my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be like anyone else.”
Judges 16:17 NRSV

It’s kind of like he’s remembering for a moment who he was created to be: A Nazarite dedicated to God to save his people from their enemies. He was dedicated from before birth! Who were you created to be? What gifts, passion, and callings are on your life to bring glory to God? You were made to have a purpose, even several purposes. You were made for more than just lust, entitlement, and pride. Samson gives away what he was made for for the same old sin.

She let him fall asleep on her lap; and she called a man, and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. He began to weaken, and his strength left him.
Judges 16:19 NRSV

There it is. The enemy has him. How many men out of disobedience of God are doing battle with their own strength and missing God’s strength? Your strength has left you. Samson’s “one vice”, his “one sin” catches up with him.

The Cost of Disobedience
So far we’ve looked at two steps that let to Samson’s destruction: he taunted and underestimated the enemy and he rationalized the same old sin. The third step is this: he assumed his disobedience would never cost him.

Then she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” When he awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.
Judges 16:20 NRSV

Sometime your sin will catch up to you. You’ll go to your wife, and she’ll say “That’s enough” and the marriage will be over. You’ll promise your kids another empty promise (even if you really truly mean it this time), and they’ll say “That’s enough” and will give up on you. You’ll go to your boss and apologize for not doing the work, and she’ll say, “That’s enough” and your job will be done. Your sin will find you out. There will be consequences.

We read about the consequences to Samson’s sin:

So the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles; and he ground at the mill in the prison.
Judges 16:21 NRSV

This didn’t happen all at once out of the blue. It happened one small step at a time. Where are you stepping away from God? Be honest.

No time in the Bible. Step.
No time in prayer. Step.
A sense of entitlement: I deserve this! Step.
Giving in to lust: I want it! Step.
Living in pride: I can handle it! Step.
Blowing up in anger. Step.
Apathetic to God. Step.
Greed for more. What you have is never enough. Step.
Financial disobedience. Not bringing the full tithe to God. Step.

You are only as strong as you are honest! How honest are you with God and those around you? How honest are you with yourself?

So if you are stepping away from God in any way, what should you do? Turn around! Go the other way! It’s not too late! It’s that simple! Turn around. When you turn around, who will be right there waiting for you? God! In God you will find grace. Samson’s story isn’t over. We read:

But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
Judges 16:22 NRSV

It is a sign of grace. His hair begins to grow again. That which gives you strength will grow again! No matter how many steps down the road you have gone away from God, your life is not a waste. Turn around and you will find God right there waiting for you and God’s grace will begin to grow your hair again.

God, may the men who hear this message not taunt and underestimate the enemy. May the men who hear this message not become complacent in the same old sin. May the men who hear this message not assume that their sin will have no consequence. May the men who hear this message turn around and find you, and may your grace begin to grow their strength again. In the name of Jesus and in the power of your Spirit at work in us. Amen.

* This sermon and the series are based on a sermon series originally preached by Craig Groeschel.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: honesty, humility, men, obedience, sin

Emotional Strength *

January 13, 2014 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Samson – Emotional Strength *
Sycamore Creek Church
January 12/13, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today we continue a series exploring Samson, the judge of Israel who had high highs and low lows. Samson was set aside at birth for God to save the people from the Philistines. Israel had become so closely connected and assimilated with the Philistines that they were at risk of losing their own identity and God’s call on their lives. Samson was a man of great potential but made self destructive decisions. He was an incredibly strong man with a dangerously weak will. Last week we saw that he struggled with lust (I want it!), entitlement (I deserve it!), and pride (I can handle it!). In the midst of those struggles this strong man became weak. Today we’re going to explore a further key idea in Samson’s life:

Samson was emotion-driven not Spirit-led.

Now it may seem odd to say that a man known for his strength was emotion-driven. We men don’t like to think of ourselves as emotional. We say that women are emotional, and men are strong. But this isn’t really true. The difference is more about how men and women process emotion. Women talk. Men act. Women say, “Come over and have tea so we can talk.” Men do beer and balls…football, basketball, baseball, hockeyball.

Let me give you an example from my own marriage. Here’s the difference between parenting styles with me and Sarah when it comes to potty training. Sarah likes to talk it out with Micah: “Micah, do you need to go potty? Micah, don’t you think you should give it a try? Micah, it’s so much easier to go potty than to change a diaper.” She tries to creatively cajole him into it. The more frustrated she gets the more she talks to him about what he should do. Here’s how I make it work: “Micah, go sit on the potty.” If he doesn’t go, I pick him up and make him go. The more frustrated I get, the fewer words I use and the more I rely on physical power to persuade. Sarah: Creative Cajoler. Tom: Physical Power to Persuade.

While generalizations are not always true, this one can be helpful for our exploration of Samson today. Too often men allow their emotions to lead their actions. You need to engage with kids when you get home, but you sit in front of the TV because you’re emotionally fried after working hard. You do or say something and should apologize, but you don’t because of pride. Someone angers you and you explode in anger even though you know you shouldn’t.

Paul, the first Christian missionary said:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh…
Galatians 5:16-17 NRSV

Emotions aren’t always bad, in fact they’re a gift. But when we let our emotions take over, they become the “flesh” that Paul is talking about that is opposed to God’s Spirit at work in us.

So let’s get to Samson. We find in the story of Samson a battle of the riddle. Samson has a competition with a bunch of other guys around a riddle. Do men always have to compete? But he doesn’t leave it at a competition. He adds a bet. Do men always have to bet to make the competition fun? Here’s the riddle:

Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.
Judges 14:14 NRSV

So the answer to this riddle is a lion and honey. Samson killed a lion, came back later and found in its corpse a bunch of bees and honey. The Philistine men can’t figure it out, so they threaten Samson’s Philistine wife (not Delilah), and she cries to Samson and gets the answer from him. He tells her, and she tells them. They solve the riddle and Samson is furious. He says:

If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.
Judges 14:18 NRSV

OK, guys. First, don’t let another guy plow with your wife. Second, don’t call your wife a heifer! Instead of being led by the Spirit, Samson becomes driven by his emotion, particularly his anger. He takes the lives of 30 innocent men to pay his bet. Samson then leaves the party, and his wife’s dad thinks that he’s abandoned his daughter so he gives her to another man. Samson comes back several weeks later and finds that his wife has been given to someone else. So he takes 150 foxes, ties them together, lights their tails on fire, and sets them lose in the Philistine grain fields. Philistines become furious and burn Samson’s wife and her dad.

Anger leads to a destructive cycle of violence in Samson’s life and becomes Samson’s default emotion. But what did Samson have to be angry about? He chose to marry with “uncircumcised Philistines” (this is a religious distinction not ethnic distinction), against his parents’ advice. He picked the riddle. He gave the answer away. He took the foxes to burn the field. Who should Samson be angry with?

Too often anger becomes the default emotion of many men. We’re angry at the world, when we should be angry at ourselves. We end up taking it out on someone else. My wife won’t meet my physical needs, but have you met her emotional needs? My kids don’t want to spend time with me now, but did you spend time with them then? I’m angry at God about my circumstances, but they are the natural consequences of my choices. Let’s call it what it is: I need forgiveness. I need accountability. I need to apologize to my kids, my wife, my boss, etc., and I need make real changes. [Side note: wives, when your husband apologizes, receive the apology. You are on humble ground. Yes, keep your expectation of changed behavior, but an apologizing husband is a humbled husband.]

The anger and violence in Samson raises all kinds of questions about God, God’s people, and how God works in our world. We read:

The spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men.
Judges 15:14-16 NRSV

How can God’s Spirit give him power and he be so violent? Here’s a distinction that is very important to understand. We can have the gifts of God’s Spirit in us and lack the fruit of God’s Spirit. What do I mean? Think about that passage about love that gets read at every wedding you’ve ever been at. It’s from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and it says:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Corinthians 13:1-3 NRSV

You can have the supernatural gift of tongues and speak in all kinds of language but without love, you’re a noisy gong. You can prophecy about the future in miraculous ways, but without love you’re nothing. You can have amazing faith in God, but without love it’s nothing. You can choose voluntary poverty and asceticism, but without love you’re really poor. In other words, God gives all of us gifts, some of them quite impressive on the outside, but the character traits of God’s Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—may be totally absent. We can have external excellence and internal rot. We are then white-washed tombs.

Angry, violent and abusive men are often loved by many, and many are surprised to find that at home they verbally or physically abuse their wives. Powerful spiritual leaders can lead secret sinful lives (which is really most of us!). Samson is super strong but without love he is just an aggressive animal, a violent tyrant, a brutal bully. To be Spirit-led is to have not just the gifts of God’s Spirit at work in us but also the fruit, to have the talent and the character of Christ.

I have had to wrestle with anger myself. I’ve had to look at the rot in my own life. Anger has raised its head more often that I would like. Something I’ve come to notice is that anger is not the opposite of love, apathy is the opposite of love. Anger and love are often very closely related. In fact, anger by itself isn’t necessarily bad. One book I read suggested that anger is a physiological readiness to respond (Neil Clark Warren, Make Anger Your Ally). Anger is actually a secondary emotion to frustration, fear, or hurt. Anger has a lot of power in it, but we need to take that power and put it purpose, to let it be Spirit-led rather than destructive. Paul tells us:

Be angry but do not sin.
Ephesians 4:26 NRSV

Anger by itself is not a sin. It’s what you do with the anger. Will you let it be led by the character of Christ in you? Let me suggest from my own wrestling with anger a To Do List and a To Don’t List. First the To Don’t list:

To Don’t List

Don’t curse at your loved ones. When was the last time you called your wife a word that better describe a female dog? Don’t ever call your wife a B#%^&. Don’t do it. Just don’t. It’s not kind or gentle. Don’t aim any curse words at her. Don’t use aggressive language to try to motivate your wife or your kids. That’s being emotion-drive rather than Spirit-led.
Don’t belittle your loved ones. Don’t tell your loved ones how bad they are. Don’t tell them they’re worthless or won’t amount to anything. Don’t tell your wife this or your kids. Don’t tear down your family with your words. That’s being emotion-driven, not Spirit-led.
Don’t use physical power to coerce your wife. Don’t try to get your wife to do what you want her to do by treating her like she’s a toddler. You don’t pick your wife up and move her. She is her own person. You don’t discipline your wife as though she were a child. You don’t hit your wife in any way. This is being emotion-driven rather than Spirit-led.
Don’t always use physical power with your kids. If your go-to method of discipline with your kids is always physical power, you are allowing anger to drive you rather than creative loving discipline. Yes, restraint is often warranted. Holding your kids back from hurting themselves is one thing. Hitting them or pushing them is another. If you find yourself not being very creative in your discipline and resorting to physical power over and over again, you’re being emotion-driven rather than Spirit-led.

To Do List

Slow it down. When you’re angry, you’ve got to slow things down. Emotions and decisions can add up quickly. How do you slow it down so that you can be Spirit-led rather than emotion-driven? Here’s how…
Walk away and cool down. When you get angry you enter into a state of being flooded. When your heart-beat gets over 100BMP, all kinds of things are happening in your body with adrenaline and hormones. You won’t think straight when your heartbeat hits 100BPM. You’ve got to walk away and let your body get back to a normal state so that you’re Spirit-led and not emotion-driven.
Ask yourself: “What do I really want?” That’s a key question that often gets lost amidst anger. The end goal gets missed and short-term goals of dominating the moment take over. “What do I really want?” requires you think about what God really wants in that situation, and that’s being Spirit-led rather than emotion-driven.
Come back and talk it out. Take the initiative to come back. Take the initiative to talk it out. Don’t let your wife be the one who always brings difficult topics up. Be a leader in your family. Talk about the hard stuff. God is in the hard stuff. That’s being Spirit-led rather than emotion-driven.
Identify and be aware of anger triggers. Notice over time what things or situations trigger anger in you. Consider keeping an anger journal. The more aware you are of your anger triggers, the more you can use the power of anger to Spirit-led purposes rather than emotion-driven action.
Use your anger to give you power to creatively seek what you want (long-term) rather than the short-term (explosion). Use the power of anger to motivate you to find creative ways to discipline your kids (ask for help!), creative problem solving with your wife (ask for help!), and loving solutions. Love is looking for the solution you would want if you were the person you were angry with. That’s being Spirit-led rather than emotion-driven.
Let your need drive you to God, and God will meet your deepest need. Acknowledge you are in need. Back to Samson:

By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the LORD…
Judges 15:18 NRSV

This is the first time that Samson called on the Lord through all of this! He basically ignores God through this entire angry outburst with the Philistines, but when he finally acknowledges his need for water—a need that he can’t solve by himself—he meets the Lord again.

Men, when you call out to God, God’s strength comes in your weakness. You can be a Spirit-led man of strength (gifts) and love (fruit) rather than an emotion-driven man of anger. Acknowledge your need for God today and let the Spirit of God make you strong in love for God, love for your family, and all those around you.

God, may it be so in the lives of every man today. Amen!

* This sermon series is based on a series by Craig Groeschel

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: anger, emotions, men, strength, weakness

Jesus’ Wish List *

December 31, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Christmas Is Not Your Birthday – Jesus’ Wish List *
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
December 24, 2013

Merry Christmas Friends! Every time I watch that scene from the History Channel’s Bible Series I get a little teary eyed. I’m moved by the mess of it. There’s nothing clean or simple about it. It’s got the elements of a seriously powerful story. Political intrigue. Down and out characters. Foreign emissaries. Money. Precious jewels. Poverty. A new king being born. And a big question: what will this king be like? What will this king demand of his kingdom?

I’m not sure how we got from The Nativity to this:

I’m sure no one has fried cat on their Christmas wish list. How is your shopping for presents going? Got it all done? Was it easy? Hard? It always depends for me on who I’m shopping for. It’s easy to shop for my wife, Sarah. I just buy her clothes. Easy? Yes, easy. “How is it easy to buy clothes for your wife?” you ask. Here’s my secret: I don’t even try to figure out what she thinks will look good. I simply buy what I think looks good and when she sees my reaction to how good she looks in it, she’s sold. Boom shakalaka! Sarah, easy.

On the other hand, my dad is super hard to buy gifts for. How do you buy gifts for a guy who has most everything he wants? And if he doesn’t have what he wants, he just goes out and buys it. Well, one year I nailed it. I’m not sure it was for Christmas, but it was a gift he would never forget. I simply wrote down several memories I had of him growing up, and by the end of it I had four pages of memories. He cried as he read them. Here are some of the memories I wrote down:

I remember the feel of my dad’s prickly face at the end of the day as he kissed me good night.
I remember the first day I beat my dad running. We raced in the street. It was the last time we raced.
I remember my dad offering the suggestion that I get out in front at the beginning of the mile-long race in middle school track. I followed his advice. I’m not sure it helped my race, but I remember with great satisfaction the joy of having pleased him in watching me.
I remember the one and only time I yelled at my dad. I was in college. As my volume raised and my curse rang out, my voice cracked and the effect was considerably less than I desired. While my dad did not often raise his voice with me, it was the last time either of us yelled at one another.

Boom shakalaka! Dad, hard, but done.

Mike Slaughter asks a question that I think all of us should ponder:

How can we change the traditional focus of Christmas from materialistic self-indulgence to giving Jesus what he desires for his birthday?…What can you possibly give the Lord of the universe?

What can you possibly give the Lord of the universe! Now that’s an even harder person to shop for than my dad. Slaughter goes on to say:

Fortunately, Jesus made his wish list unquestionably clear.

Then he points to a passage in the book of the Bible written by Matthew, one of Jesus’ closest followers. Matthew was a Jewish tax collector. His fellow Jews considered him a sell-out to the empire that occupied their territory. Maybe this is why Matthew was sure to get this story down from Jesus. Listen for Jesus’ birthday wish list. It’s obvious.

Matthew 25:31-40 (The Message)
“When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’

“Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’

I interact with a lot of people who have questions about God. Sycamore Creek Church tries to be a faith community that is curious, creative, and compassionate. We’re curious because we welcome questions. I’ve got questions too. And this is a question I get asked a lot:

If God is all-loving and all-powerful, then why doesn’t God do something about evil?

One “answer to this question is simple: you are the ‘something’ that God is sending to combat evil in this world” (Slaughter). The way that you live your life, the hungry you feed, the thirsty you share a drink with, the homeless you give a room, the shivering you share your coat with, the sick you visit, and the prisoner you go see are what is on Jesus’ wish list. They’re on Jesus’ wish list because they’re Jesus’ plan for bringing healing and wholeness to the world. “We need to be committed to live more simply so that others may simply live—because that is what Jesus desires from his followers” (Slaughter).

This means that we need to think differently about how we celebrate Christmas. News flash: it’s not your birthday. Did you know that? It’s not your birthday or your kid’s birthday or your grandkid’s birthday or your husband or wife’s birthday. It’s Jesus’ birthday! That means that on Christmas we need to throw a huge birthday bash for the birthday boy, Jesus. Are there any Christmas presents under your Christmas tree that have Jesus’ name on them? Have you included any family traditions that remind your family that you’re not celebrating each others birthdays, but you’re celebrating Jesus’ birthday?

Let me make a simple suggestion: give something to Jesus that is on Jesus’ wish list this year. And we’re giving you an opportunity to do that today: our Christmas Eve offering that will go 100% to our medical missions in Nicaragua. This isn’t the only way that you can give Jesus something this Christmas, but it is one great way.

We’ve been challenging ourselves this (and every Christmas) to give away as much as you spend on yourself at Christmas. Or maybe you have to spend half as much on yourself so that you can give half away. Imagine if every person who calls themselves a Christian did this. Imagine if they gave to some mission or charity somewhere in the world. Here’s how the math plays out: the average family spend about $800 on Christmas. So this year you spend $400 and give $400. 78% of Americans claim to be Christians. That’s about 234,000,000 Christians in America alone. So multiply $400 by 234 million and you get: $93,600,000,000. That’s $93 billion! $93 billion! How much would it cost to end world hunger? The estimates aren’t perfect, but according to the United Nations, it would cost $30 billion a year (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/news/04iht-04food.13446176.html?_r=0). That’s only 1/3 of what Christians spend on themselves every Christmas. We could wipe out world hunger forever if we gave something to Jesus that is on his wish list.

Recently I was told by a hard-core skeptic I met, “There is nothing special about the group of people (Christians) who say they know God and His will.” In some ways that’s too true. But here at SCC we’re trying to orient our entire life together to give Jesus what’s on his wish list not just at Christmas but every day of the year. Our small groups each commit to serving somewhere in the community.

Every month we send 5-10 people to serve dinner and make friends at Maplewood women and children’s center. Every other month 5-10 people go down to Open Door Ministry at CentralUnitedMethodistChurch to serve coffee and make friends while men and women wait (often in the cold) for their community room to open. This year we collected almost 4000 items for Compassion Closet personal needs bank. Every quarter 5-10 people head to Holt Senior Care to socialize and make friends with the residents. 20-30 people head to Henry North Elementary, the most diverse elementary in the Lansing school district, to work in their community garden. Twice a year 5-10 people help with Recycle Rama so that we can be better stewards of the earth that God has given us. As 2013 comes to a close we’re finishing up a three-year capital campaign so that one day we can own our own building. When we began the campaign, we decided to tithe 10% of it to missions. We’ve raised almost $330,000 and we’re giving away $33,000 of it. Over the twelve years of our life we’ve received and given away $31,000 in Christmas Eve offerings. What’s more, over the life our church we’ve received and given away over $150,000 to local and foreign missions and charities. That’s almost $11,000 a year. And because we’re part of the UnitedMethodistChurch, we can lay claim to some of the $42,000,000 that United Methodists gave to local and foreign missions in 2012 alone! Is there nothing unique about these people who claim to know God? Show me another community that has done this sort of work giving to Jesus what’s on his wish list year after year after year. We’re not perfect, but we are seeking to be compassionate to everyone, no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done.

So this year we continue in that tradition of giving to Jesus what is on his wish list this Christmas. 100% of the Christmas Eve offering will go to our medical missions in Nicaragua. We send medical teams to Nicaragua twice a year. They bring life-giving medicine and life-changing medical expertise along with spiritual hope. We’ve been working for over ten years with a local doctor who is planting a church out of her home. She feed over fifty kids every day. For many of them this is the only meal they get. We give to this mission not because we get anything out of it, although we do, but because it is what is on the birthday boy’s wish list this day and every day. This year we’re expecting a miracle at our Christmas Eve offering. The biggest amount we’ve ever received was $5800 in 2011. This year we’re expecting twice that. Will you join us?

God, give us the inspiration, motivation, and courage to celebrate Christmas differently this year. Let us celebrate it not as our own birthday but as Jesus’ birthday. Let us focus on our own wish list but on Jesus’ wish list. In his name and in the power of his Spirit. Amen.

*This sermon is based on Mike Slaughter’s book, Christmas Is Not Your Birthday.

Filed Under: Sermons

Scandalous Love *

December 31, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Christmas Is Not Your Birthday – Scandalous Love *
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
December 22/23, 2013

Merry Christmas Friends! Christmas is for dysfunctional family love, isn’t it? I mean, come on, we’ve all got a cousin Eddy in our families. Our lives and our families are a mess. My own family story includes adoption, adultery, divorce, porn addiction, suicide attempts, running away (multiple times), juvenile detention, jail, prison, drugs, alcoholism, addictions, coming out of the closet (and the whole gamut of responses), bankruptcy, anxiety, denial, poor health decisions, smoking, overeating, diabetes, Child Protective Services, power struggles, greed, covetousness, and judgmentalism (my own personal favorite given that I always wanted a perfect family!), and a whole lot of attempts (some successful and some not) at mercy, grace, and love.

Some of us are cousin Eddy! I’ve got to admit it. I’ve played the role before. At one of our first Christmases after getting married, I was at Sarah’s parents’ house. They do great damage to the traditional magical Christmas morning by actually showering and eating breakfast before getting to open presents. Sarah’s mom goes to great lengths to set out a stunning table for Christmas. She’s got the family heirloom silver with engraved family initials. Then there’s the super nice china. Beautiful candles. Everything! And it’s all sitting on top of an amazing embroidered heirloom table cloth and napkins. So we’re all sitting there having eaten our breakfast, and I’ve never had to wait this long in my life to open presents. I’m getting antsy. So I start fidgeting with whatever is around me. For some reason, or perhaps because for no reason at all because my brain is beginning to shut down, I begin fidgeting with those beautiful red candles. Before I know what’s happened the candle is knocked over and red wax splashes across that beautiful embroidered heirloom table cloth. I am cousin Eddy. I wasn’t alone though. Several years later, Sarah’s sister got married and our new brother-in-law did the SAME EXACT THING! We’re all cousin Eddy at some point or another.

Christmas is the season for messy families. Our own church has families struggling. A church is just a community of broken and wounded people seeking to share with one another and anyone who will listen where they’re finding medicine for the soul. When we find that medicine, our dysfunction spills over into our relationship with God. Christmas becomes a season where we see God’s scandalous love for us! How could anybody love cousin Eddy? God does.

Hosea – a Crazy Marriage
There’s a crazy insane story about God’s love in the book of Hosea in the Old Testament. Hosea was one of God’s prophets, and one day God told Hosea to do something unthinkable:

Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them [their raisin cakes].”
Hosea 3:1 NLT

God told Hosea to go marry a woman who would not be faithful to him! Why? So that we would have a visual representation of what God’s love looks like for us when we are not faithful to God, which is more often than we would like to admit and always for things that seem to pale in comparison, like raisin cakes.

The Hebrew word at the end of this passage that is usually translated simply as “them” is literally “raisin cakes.” Raisin cakes were a delicacy and used as a sacrificial worship of other gods. It seems somehow appropriate at Christmas to talk about raisin cakes. Think of all the Christmas delicacies: turkey, ham, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, stocking stuffer candy, egg nog, fruit cake, pound cake, cookies, pie, fudge (my Grandma Arthur made the best peanut butter fudge and my self discipline always evaporates when the tin of fudge shows up), caramels, and more and more and more. We turn the birthday of Jesus into an excuse for gluttony.

Christmas is a time when we sell our bodies to the god of our taste buds. We put on weight. Too much weight. By the way, in February we’re going to do a four week series and twelve-week health and weight loss campaign called Bod4God. Wait for it (no pun intended).

But we don’t just show our unfaithfulness in what we eat. We show it by the entire way that we celebrate Christmas. Mike Slaughter says, “We sell ourselves out to…consumerism…materialism and greed. Imagine Gomer saying, “Happy Birthday, Hosea! To celebrate, I’m going to party with my other friends!’…What God wants from us for Jesus’ birthday and every day, is love. God craves that we return God’s scandalous love with our own, demonstrated by how we treat those in need.”

God’s Scandalous Love
Hosea’s marriage to Gomer is INCOMPREHENSIBLE! What would you do? Kick her to the curb. Right? Eventually Gomer is sold into slavery. Hosea takes his commitment to their marriage one step past insanity: he buys her back! What would you do? Certainly NOT buy her back! Hosea must be co-dependent or something. Or he’s being faithful to God’s call to scandalous love.

Jesus shows us what God’s love looks like. When God creates us and calls us good, very good, and we run the other way, our will is turned in on itself. We become very self-centered and focused on “ME.” We search after what “I” want and ignore the one who created us and loved us. We do great damage to ourselves, those around us, and the rest of God’s creation. Then God does the unthinkable! God buys us back after our infidelity. God takes on the form of a human and willingly submits to execution to pay for the debt of our sin and heal the woundedness of humanity. Like Captain America, he throws himself on the grenade to save others:

There’s one big difference between that scene from Captain America and what Jesus does. Jesus dies not just for his allies, but also for his enemies. He dies not just for those who are faithful, but those who are unfaithful. He dies not just for Hosea, but also for Gomer. He dies not just for Clark Griswold, but also for cousin Eddy!

Jesus doesn’t just love the perfect and powerful. He especially loves the down and out. When Mary finds out she’s going to be pregnant, she sings a song:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
Luke 1:46-49 NRSV

Mary trusted God’s promise of love, even if it came with some scandal. Mary’s song continues:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
Luke 1:51-53 NRSV

If we’re going to practice this same scandalous love, we’re going to need to reach out to the least, last, and lost. Even the cousin Eddyies in your family. No matter who we are, what we’ve done, where we’ve been, God buys us back from our own brokenness. This is a life orientation, not just something we do during the holidays. Sometimes this is going to be our own families that we show scandalous love to.

Recently my dad decided that he had administered the family cell phone plan for long enough. He had also been paying for it all! He gave us all a deadline: figure something else out by December 15. My first thought was to talk to my mom and step-dad about joining their plan, but we’d pay for our portion. So I called and talked to my mom, and she passed me on to my step-dad, Dave. Dave is recently retired so he has lots of time to fill. He spent the next several days researching how they could best use their plan to help other people. He came back to me with an offer that included administering a family cell phone plan for Sarah and me, my brother, his daughter, and his employee who recently bought his business and her husband. What he said next floored me. He said, “I’ve also offered this to my ex-wife and if your dad and step-mom want to join it, that’s fine too.” What? I said back to him, “Are you sure you want to administer a family cell phone plan for your ex-wife and your wife’s ex-husband and his wife?” He replied, “I guess that’s what Jesus’ love and forgiveness does for someone.” Whoa! That’s scandalous love.

Friends, we’re inviting you this Christmas to join a scandal. Give up on the perfect Christmas and quit celebrating Christmas like it’s your birthday. Instead, this year (and for years to come) celebrate Christmas like it’s Jesus’ birthday, because it is. This year, give away as much as you spend on yourself. We’ll be taking a Christmas Eve offering that we’ll then be giving away 100%. We’ll use that offering to support our medical missions in Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Americas. We send medical teams twice a year to bring life-giving medicine and medical knowledge and spiritual help to places that no one else goes. We work with a local doctor who is planting a church out of her home and feeds lunch to fifty kids a day, the only meal that many of them receive. Two years ago I went on one of these trips. Here’s what I saw:

Over the twelve years of our life, we’ve given away a total of $31,000 from Christmas Eve offerings. Last year, 2012, we were able to give away $3800. 2011 was our record year. We gave away $5800. Can we make this our biggest year ever? Can we give away $6000? Can we take it a step further? Can we make this a miracle year? Can we give away $10,000? We can, but only if you buy into God’s scandalous love and decide that this Christmas you’re going to celebrate it as Jesus’ birthday rather than your own. After all, Christmas is Jesus’ birthday.

*This sermon and series are based on the book, Christmas Is Not Your Birthday by Mike Slaughter.

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