July 1, 2024

Posts Comments

The Cue to Who*

March 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment

come&see

Come and See: The Cue to Who*
Sycamore Creek Church
March 22/23, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today we continue in this series Come and See.  We’ve learned so far that Jesus is someone who has to be experienced, not something to be explained.  And when our lives show Jesus, people are more open to what we tell them.  Most of us began following Jesus and joining a faith community because we were invited by someone.  All of Jesus’ followers came through a simple invitation: come and see.  The goal was not to explain something, but to experience someone. Jesus needs to be experienced, not explained.

There are two metaphors for how Jesus wants us to interact in the world: Salt and Light.  Salt protects and light directs.  Our actions are to protect and direct.  People will then see your good works and glorify God.  People are more compelled by what we do, not what we believe.  A living example is better than a lengthy explanation.  Our witness to other people hinges on what they witness us doing.

So today we’re going to dive into who you should invite to come and see.  Sometimes it’s hard for us to invite.  We feel awkward.  Our culture says that faith is private, not to be put on public display.  As a pastor, I tend to have the opposite problem at times.  People find out I’m a pastor and they feel guilty. They expect me to invite them.  They think I’m all about the money.  Or they dive into a free counseling session (and I’m not even a very good counselor!).  So while I have a unique set of obstacles that is a little different than your set of obstacles, we all struggle in some way with inviting.  So today we’re going to look at the Who, When, and Why of inviting as Jesus models it for us with a Samaritan woman.

 

One day after baptizing some people in Judea (southern Israel), Jesus decides it’s time to go to Galilee (northern Israel).  In between Judea and Galilee is Samaria.  Usually Jews walked way out of the distance to not go through Samaria.  For a modern example, think about a modern Israeli walking around Palestine so that they don’t have to go through Palestine.  They come to Jacob’s Well and Jesus’ disciples head into town to buy some food while Jesus takes a break from the long trek. Here’s where we pick up the story:

Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water…
~John 4:6-7 NLT

Notice that it’s noontime.  That’s an unusual time to be drawing water from the well.  Usually you draw water when it’s cool in the morning or evening.  But at noon it would be hot.  Why would this woman be drawing water at the hottest time of the day?  Maybe she’s trying to get away from everyone?  Maybe she’s ashamed to be there when others are there.  Maybe she’s just introverted and doesn’t want to talk to many people.  I know the feeling.  I’m introverted and would rather just go about my business and not talk to any strangers.  So this interaction with someone is not a planned moment.  Jesus is tired.  This woman is likely trying to avoid people and gossip.  Yet Jesus notices something and enters into the conversation.  Where will it go?

Lately I know something of what this feels like.  I’ve been trying to pull myself out of my introversion a bit by carrying two pennies in my right pocket.  These two pennies represent two conversations I try to have each day with someone I don’t know.  They remind me to enter into unplanned conversations.  I’m always a bit ambivalent about entering into these conversations.  Where will they lead?  Sometimes they’re short and polite.  But one time I ended up in an unplanned marital counseling session.  Not what I had planned for the day!

Back to Jesus and the woman, there is no reason to have any interaction.  Jesus didn’t have to do anything.  Jewish men are not expected to interact with a Samaritan woman.  So he could have just remained quiet, but he didn’t:

Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.”
~John 4:7 NLT

That’s it.  That’s how he got into the conversation.  Then what happened?

The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
~John 4:9 NLT

The woman is surprised because Jewish men weren’t supposed to interact with Samaritan women.  It made them ceremonially unclean.  She was shocked.  What’s this all about, she asks.  They have a conversation about water and how Jesus is Living Water.  Then Jesus says:

“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
~John 4:16 NLT

Now if you know the rest of the story, you’re thinking to yourself, “Don’t bring up the part about the husband.”  This conversation is quickly going into stormy waters.  This is the moment when you kick your kids under the table which means, “Shut up.  Don’t talk any more about THAT!”  I somehow stumble into these kinds of conversations all the time.  Over Christmas we went up north to Boyne City.  We gave Micah a special gift: a ride in a Snow Cat Groomer at Boyne Mountain.  He loved it!  We rode up and down the mountain in this amazing machine grooming the ski hills with our driver named Steve.  Micah was kind of entranced by the whole thing and was pretty quiet.  So I struck up a conversation with Steve.  I asked him if he had any kids.  He had two.  He went on to tell me about the younger one.  Then I asked, “What about the older one?”  This is when I needed my wife to kick me under the table and say, “Don’t ask about the older ONE!”  Turns out his older son moved with his mom to North Carolina when she left Steve to marry another man.  Doh!  How did I end up in this place, this place where Jesus is about to end up bringing up the Samaritan woman’s husband.  She says:

“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”
~John 4:17-18

Ok, Jesus.  Don’t you know that you just don’t go there?  Come on!  I wouldn’t suggest taking this exact approach unless you’re the Son of God.  But there is a principle that we can learn from here: Jesus saw a cue and he engaged her.  It was the perfect opportunity to not say anything.  But Jesus decided to engage in the topic that was off the table.  Jesus seemed to have cues about who he was going to engage, and there are cues for who we engage in our world and invite to experience Jesus at church.  So who do we invite?  We know the “WHOs” by paying attention to the “CUEs.”  I want to talk about three cues to invite.

#1 – Not Going Well
When you see that something is not going well in someone’s life, that might be a cue to invest and invite.  Someone’s marriage is falling apart.  Their spouse had an affair.  They had an affair.  Their family is in conflict.  A teenager is in trouble.  A family member is estranged.  Things aren’t going well in their career or job.  Their boss is a jerk and they’re about to quit.  These are all cues that something isn’t going well and it might be the time to invite them to church.

An objection may be raised: What does church have to do with my boss being a jerk?  My boss needs church, not me.  Here’s the answer: “I don’t know, but I’ve been in a spot before when things weren’t going well, and I’m just telling you, my faith in Jesus has helped me. And I don’t know exactly what it has to do with your situation, but you should come and see. I can’t explain it to you.  I don’t have all the answers.”

This is not about you being the savior of the world.  You just know the savior of the world.  Your invitation in a season of things not going well, might be the thing that God uses to bring them into a relationship with Jesus.  What if the situation doesn’t turn around? There may be a moment later when the realization hits that this was the thing that brought them to God.  The first cue to who is that things are not going well.

#2 – Not prepared for
The second cue to who to invest and invite is that you see that something is happening they’re not prepared for.  They got engaged, but don’t know how to be a spouse.  They’re not prepared for kids, but they’ve got one.  I know this well myself.  Sarah and I were married for thirteen years before we had kids.  Being married for thirteen years doesn’t give you much practice for being prepared to have a child.  I experienced a male form of postpartum depression after my first son was born.  So not only was I not prepared but it was not going well either!  Or maybe a parent is not prepared for their kid going to school.  Or a kid is not quite prepared for going off to college.  Or parents aren’t prepared for an empty nest.  Or you’re not prepared for caring for your aging parents.

An objection may be raised: What does the church have to do with my situation?  Here’s the answer: “I don’t know.  I don’t have all the answers.  But when I wasn’t prepared for something in the past, I found my faith in Jesus helped me.”

So if you’re a guest here today you may be thinking: which one am I?  What project am I for the person who invited me?  Well, you’re not necessarily a project.  Because there’s the third cue.

#3 – Not in church
If you’re not connected to a church then know that we created this faith community with you in mind.  We wanted Sycamore Creek to be a church, a faith community for people who were not church people.  We even adapt.  Sunday morning doesn’t work?  No problem.  Get your Sunday on Monday.  We work really hard to create a “come and see” culture here at SCC.

Maybe you’re thinking, “I can’t imagine wasting my time every Sunday morning.  It’s one of my two days off.”  Coming to a worship service competes with every other enjoyable use of time on the weekend: golf, swimming at the pool, shopping, doing projects around the house, sports.  Some of us were in the same place.  We couldn’t imagine giving up time every week.  But we came because someone invited us to come and see, and we experienced someone.  Now we can’t imagine not being here.

You invite someone because you value someone and you want to share what you value.  Watch for the cues: something is not going well, something happens they’re not prepared for, or someone is not in church.  These are cues to who to invest and invite.  But what about when?

When?
So when is the right time to invite someone?  There are some big invite days like Easter or any of the big days we do around SCC but, the best time to invite someone to church is next Sunday or Monday.  I know that we all want it to be a perfect day: beginning a new great series, the perfect topic (not money!), not a guest speaker, and with all your favorite music.  But don’t forget that God uses the small things: a smile, a kind word (to your child), a lyric in a song, the casual dress, they felt at home, they just enjoyed sitting and listening while their kids were taken care of in Kids Creek.  So when is the best time to invite?  This week.

So what might happen?  Let’s go back to Jesus and see what happens with the Samaritan woman:

Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?”
~John 4:27

Jesus is working off a different cue sheet than his disciples.  They still have so much to learn.  Because here’s what happens:

The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone…
~John 4:28

So how do you think she told that story?

“I was at the water hole and I met a guy…”

“Yeah, we’ve heard that one before!”

“Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?”
~John 4:29

Come and see.  Come and see this person.  I can’t explain it all.  You’ve just got to experience him yourself.  And so…

Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!
~John 4:39

She just shared her experience.  No big long explanation.  People can debate your explanation.  But nobody can debate your experience.

When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”
~John 4:40-42

An experience of Jesus changes everything, not an explanation.  What changed them was not her experience, but their experience.  They experienced Jesus for themselves.  And the experience changed what they believed.  That’s the order of things most often.  So next week: why the local church is the best place to experience Jesus.

As we’ve been talking, someone came to mind for you.  Who is that?  Someone you know that things are not going well.  Someone you know that things are happening they’re not prepared for.  Someone you know who is not connected to a church.  Take some time, write down those names.  Pray for them.  Pray that God would open doors for you.  Invest time in them.  Then watch for God to open the door to invite them to church.

God, thank you for the example of your Son Jesus who showed us how to pay attention to the cues in the people’s lives around us.  Give us the courage of his Spirit to invest and invite when we see those cues.  In his name we ask these things.  Amen.

 

*This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Joel Thomas.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: ,

One Community Away

September 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment

friending

 

 

 

 

 


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

Peace friends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

You might be one community away from changing your destiny.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: ,

Edge of Tomorrow: Learning from Past Mistakes

June 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

 

 

 

God on Film – Edge of Tomorrow
Learning from Past Mistakes
Sycamore Creek Church
June 8/9, 2014
Tom Arthur

 

Peace friends!

When have you not learned from your past mistakes? I don’t know how many times I’ve done this but almost every time I get in the hall closet to pull out a coat, I try to pull the coat out of the closet without first removing the vacuum cleaner.  I grab the coat and pull and the vacuum cleaner topples over and crashes to the ground.  Every time!  Why do I keep doing it this way?

Then there’s the whole wireless mouse issue I’ve got.  I’m currently on my third wireless mouse because I keep forgetting to remove the little wireless thing you plug into the side of your laptop, and I end up smashing it into something and breaking it.  I’ve got two useless mice keeping me company at my desk.

Ramping up the stakes a little higher, Sarah and I have been married for seventeen years.  There are certain arguments we’ve been having for seventeen years.  These arguments are very predictable.  We even have a script.  I say A.  She says B.  I say C.  She says D.  It’s as if I think that if I trot out the same arguments I’ve been using for seventeen years that she will finally this time see the perfect wisdom that I have to share and will bow down at my feet in humble submission and acknowledge my patience for persevering with these arguments for seventeen years.  But that hasn’t happened yet.  Rather it’s.  Argue.  Fight.  Repeat.

There are some mistakes you make just once and some mistakes you make over and over again.  The wisdom of the Bible has something to say about these kinds of mistakes we repeat over and over again:

As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his foolishness.
~Proverbs 26:11 NLT

Today we’re continuing in our summer series, God on Film.  Each week we’re looking at a different summer blockbuster.  Each of these movies picks up a theme and explores it from Hollywood’s perspective.  We’re exploring that same theme from the Bible’s perspective.  Today we’re looking at the new Tom Cruise movie, Edge of Tomorrow. 

Edge of Tomorrow is kind of like Enders Game meets Saving Private Ryan meets Groundhog Day.  Tom Cruise’s character gets stuck repeating the same battle with aliens over and over again.  The tag line for this movie is Live – Die – Repeat.  He fights.  Dies.  And then repeats the whole thing again.  Every time he gets a little further in the battle.  The theme I want to explore today is learning from your past mistakes, and I want to look at three things the Bible teaches about learning from your past mistakes.

1. Get Up Again
Edge of Tomorrow works a bit like a video game.  When you die, you hit the reset button and play it again.  Every time you die in the video game, you learn a little bit from your mistake and you make it a little further the next time around.

When I was in college one of my roommates had a Nintendo (yes, the original one).  For Christmas he was given Mike Tyson’s Punchout.  It became a contest in our house for who could get to Mike Tyson first and beat him.  I was determined to get those bragging rights so I spent countless hours playing that video game.  Eventually I won.  I TKO’d Mike Tyson before anyone else in my house.  How did I do it?  Simple.  When I got TKO’d myself, I’d get back up again and try again.

The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again
But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.
~Proverbs 24:16 NLT

Sarah and I were on a date one night up in Boyne City at Lester’s BBQ.  As we sat having some great BBQ ribs, I looked out the window and saw several young men across the street. One of them was on a skate board trying to pull off a complicated move.  The other had a video camera and was trying to get the perfect video.  For the entire time that Sarah and I sat there and ate dinner, these two were doing this one move over and over again.  I don’t know whether they ever got what they were shooting for because when we left the restaurant, they were still trying to nail it.  I was thoroughly impressed with their perseverance.  He would fall down and get back up.  Fall down.  Get back up.  Fall down.  Get back up.

So how do you learn from your past mistakes?  You get up and try again.  You fall down.  You get up.   You fall down.  You get up.  Fall down.  Get up.

2. Surround Yourself with Others
Did you catch in the opening trailer how Emily Blunt’s character, Rita Vrataski, tells Tom Cruise’s character, Major William Cage to “come find me when you wake up.”  She helps train him so that he can get a little further each time in the battle.

 

I’m reminded that we don’t learn from our past mistakes unless we have people who surround us to help us get a little further before we fall than we did last time.  The author of Hebrew says:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
~Hebrews 12:1 NLT

You don’t do this whole faith thing alone.  You don’t have to throw off the weight of past mistakes alone.  That’s what a church is for.  It’s a community of friends that helps us get back up again and learn form our past mistakes.

This past week I had someone send me a text saying, “I’m really struggling with some bad news in my life right now and feeling like looking at porn and masturbating to numb myself from the pain.  I’m letting you know because the first line of defense is to tell someone.”  In the past he would have just fallen into the temptation.  This time he was able to resist and get a little further.

Recently I spoke with someone else who is in a recovery program for addictions.  They have a sponsor with this program.  They were feeling particularly tempted one night and picked up the phone to call their sponsor.  The temptation went away.  They got a little further.

Some time ago I talked to another person struggling with money decisions.  They wanted to spend their money in an unhealthy way.  They chose instead to meet with someone in the church, set a budget and stick with it.  They got a little further.

One of the key ways we meet new friends that will help us learn from our past mistakes is in small groups.  This summer we have 22 summer groups that you can sign up for.  You can signup for one or more of these groups online here.

Don’t do life alone.  Surround yourself with others so you can learn from your past mistakes.

3. Look Forward with God
The last way you learn from your past mistakes is you quit looking back and instead you look forward with God.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and author of many of the books of the Bible said,

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
~Philippians 3:12-14 NLT

Forget the past.  Look forward.  Press on.  I’ve recently come across a concept called C.A.N.E.P.  It means Constant And Never Ending Perfection.  The basic idea is that you don’t have to get 100% better next week.  But can you learn from your past mistakes, look forward, and press on so that you get 1% better by next week?  If you get 1% better each week, by the end of the year you’ll be over 50% better.  By the end of a life time you’ll have grown significantly.

There is a temptation in this idea itself.  We can never attain a certain kind of perfection.  Paul says that he has not already reach perfection.  We will never have perfect knowledge, perfect health, freedom from mistakes, freedom from temptation or reach a state of perfection from which we can never fall.  And yet Paul does say, “I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.”  So there is at the least a kind of perfection that we strive for.  Christians disagree on whether we can fully attain it or not, but this is the kind of perfection we are striving for: perfect love.  Perfect love is a love for God that so fills the heart that when you know what God desires of you, you are fully committed, willing, and submitted to doing it.  We become possessed by this kind of love because Jesus possessed us with this kind of love.

Speaking of being possessed by the love of God in Jesus, today is the two year anniversary of my ordination to become a pastor and this week is my eleven year anniversary of my call to become a pastor.  Eleven years ago while sitting in a workshop on spiritual intelligence, God called me to be his pastor.  I was full of all kinds of fear by this call.  I wrote this in my journal:

6-11-03: Wednesday
“We exaggerate all our suffering by our cowardice.  They are great, it is true, but they are magnified by fear.  The way to lessen them is to abandon ourselves courageously into the hands of God.”
~François Fénelon, 17th Century French Archbishop

Lord, my fears about future sufferings are great.  Help me to abandon myself totally into your hands and trust in your goodness and faithfulness to forming me into who you want me to be.  Lord, yesterday I experienced your call as clear as I have ever experienced.  I went to listen to John Savage speak at Bay View.  He was speaking on spiritual intelligence.  This particular day seemed to focus on listening to god and hearing god’s voice.  He told us to take one of the parts of our life and ask god a question about it.  Then to write from our gut the answer we heard.  And in this way to have a conversation with God.  He encouraged us not to let our mind get too wrapped up in the process.  My part was “profession.” My dialogue was as follows:

Lord, what are you calling me to?
To be a pastor.

Why?
Because I want you.

How much?
All of you.

Lord, the conviction I felt in my gut after this dialogue was similar to other convictions I have felt throughout my life that when I followed them I found that your hand was truly in them and my life was better off after having followed them and that all the fears I had expected would manifest themselves in destruction of self were completely without base.  And so I am led to believe that you did call me yesterday as clear as you have ever called me before.  It was not a voice but a conviction in my gut. 

What have been the parts of my calling thus far:
[I wrote down twenty-four different reasons/experiences/confirmations]

Lord, here are the fears I have about this call:
[I wrote down eleven fears including…]

  • I fear ending up in a very traditional church where I struggle every Sunday in that setting
  • I fear being the pastor and being bored with worship as I often am now.
  • I fear not having the financial resources to make all this happen.

Lord, these are my fears amidst the sense of call you have put on me.  Help me to abandon myself to you in all of them.  Use me today according to your will and your plan.  In Jesus’ name, may it be so.

Friends, I don’t know where you keep falling down.  What I do know is that when the love of Jesus possesses you fully and completely, you get back up, you surround yourselves with others, you look forward, and you get ready for the greatest adventure you’ll ever have in your life.  Have you been possessed by the love of Jesus?  You don’t have to do anything to prepare yourself.  You simply pray, “Lord Jesus, I am yours and you are mine.  Take my life.  Forgive me for the ways I have made the same mistakes over and over again.  Let me get back up again.  Give me good healthy friends to surround myself.  And let me look forward to your future adventure for my life.  Amen.”

If you prayed that prayer, I’d suggest you look a little further into what it means to follow Jesus.  You can find some help here.  Or pick up a Bible at the info table and begin reading it.  Get in a small group.  Talk to God daily.  You’re in for an adventure!

Bring a friend and first time guests get free movie tickets to Celebration Cinema.  Next week we continue this series with the movie: How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: , , ,

Come to the Dance

October 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

DancingWithGod

 

 

 

 

Dancing with God: Come to the Dance
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
October 13/14, 2013
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 

Let’s dance, friends!

What?  Isn’t dancing of the devil?  Doesn’t dancing lead to sex, drugs, and rock and roll?  Why are we talking about dancing in church?

Well, dancing is actually often an act of praise in the Bible.  Take Psalm 30 for example: 

You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.
(Psalm 30:11 NRSV)

Apparently the person who wrote this psalm in the Bible thinks that dancing just might be something that helps you celebrate when life is good.

Recently I came across a lost book of the Bible. It’s called, Dancing with Jesus: Featuring a Host of Miraculous Moves!  There’s the Carpenters Clog, the Temptation Tango, the Apostolic Conga, and more!  Seriously.  And you thought Jesus didn’t dance.

Ok.  Now that I’ve offended someone…What I’m trying to do in this series is explore parallels between learning to dancing and the spiritual life of following Jesus.  Last week we looked at one basic idea: Only one person can lead.  God leads and you follow.  Today I want to look at something a little more, well, messy: the dance floor itself.  I’m talking about the church.

Why Church?
I get to see the good, bad, and ugly of church life, and I often have to answer a question not only for those around me but also for myself: what good is the church?  Let’s dwell in how messy it is for a while.  I deal with a lot of people’s junk and baggage.  In fact, people bring all kinds of junk and baggage with them to church.  I essentially lead a volunteer organization (a herd of cats?) that has a serious branding issue in our culture.  Church is just about as popular these days as Congress.  I have “cousins in the faith” that make me embarrassed to call myself a Christian.  So why bother?  Sometimes I’d rather just dance my own dance to my own music and ignore everyone else around me.  Like this young woman who likes to Dance Like Nobody’s Watching:

Admit it.  Even if you love the church, sometimes you just want to ignore it all and dance all by yourself.  Looking at some of the particulars of why people don’t like the church, we find these reasons:

66% – Religion is too focused on money
66% – Religious people are too judgmental
60% – Don’t trust religious leaders
51% – Strict/inflexible beliefs
47% – Wasn’t relevant to my life
42% – Church is boring or uninteresting

In the midst of all this negativity about the church, there’s a deep spiritual current that runs through our culture:

45% “consider myself a spiritual person.”

And yet amidst this spiritual tendency only 17.2% consider it “important to attend religious services.”

So what does all this have to do with dancing?  Our culture is asking, “Why do I need a community of faith?  I can dance alone.”  Here’s the problem we immediately run into: It’s hard to learn to dance alone.

Why Community Matters
When we turn to ancient wisdom in the Bible we read this powerful explanation of why community matters:

It’s better to have a partner than go it alone.
Share the work, share the wealth.
And if one falls down, the other helps,
But if there’s no one to help, tough!

Two in a bed warm each other.
Alone, you shiver all night.

By yourself you’re unprotected.
With a friend you can face the worst.
Can you round up a third?
A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped.
~Solomon (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, The Message)

So if the problem is that it’s hard to learn to dance alone, here’s the point of today’s message: We learn best to dance in a community of dance.  Likewise, we learn to love best in an admittedly messy community of faith.  In fact, it is sometimes the messiness that gives us the opportunity to learn better how to love.  It’s the messiness of the dance floor that inspires improvisation and creativity.  Creativity and improvisation are best formed in a community rooted within a tradition.  Learning to love is best formed in a community rooted within a tradition.  I might even go so far as to say that all creativity ultimately comes from a particular tradition.  John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, understood the church in this way.  He called the church “the church reformed, always reforming.”  In other words, it is always reforming its dance move. It’s always staying rooted in the past but improvising into the future.  Dance is just like this.  Dance is always rooted in a past tradition.  Take swing dance for example.  To give you a feel of the history of how swing dancing has changed over time, and yet remained true to a basic simple step, check out this history of swing dance:

Join the Dance
So if you want to go deeper and be more creative with this whole spirituality thing, you’re going to have to show up on the dance floor of a community of dance.  You’re going to have to go to the lessons.   You’re going to have to have a community of dance that teaches you the tradition of the dance you’re trying to learn and you’re going to have to master some basic steps.  It’s hard to learn to dance alone.  You need community.  It’s hard to learn the life of faith alone.  You need a community of faith.  So join a community of dance & regularly show up on the dance floor.

Sarah and I grew the fastest in our dancing when we participated in dance communities.  We took classes, went to weekend workshops, paid instructors, hung out with friends in basement jam sessions, went to monthly big band dances, watched DVDs, and on and on and on.  We learned to dance better in a community of dance.

The church is at its best when it is a dancing community learning from the past the dance of loving God with everything you’ve got and learning to love your neighbor as you love yourself.  The church is at its best when you learn from people who are better dancers than you are, people who are further along the faith journey than you are, people who have followed Jesus longer than you have.  The church is at its best when you bring your own unique style to the steps.  The church is at its best when you learn from the past so you’re ready for the present and the future, when you learn the tradition and improvise and be creative for the present and future.

I recently had the chance to talk to someone who is new to our church and didn’t attend church before coming to our Monday night Church in a Diner.  Her name is Joanna.  She’s an art history PhD student.  Here’s how the church was giving her a community that is helping her grow in her spiritual life:

Imagine a Dance Floor
So what would it look like if the church was like a dance floor where people were regularly showing up to learn to dance better?  It would have a whole range of skills and abilities.  It would have people sitting on the sidelines just watching.  It would look like a celebration where people who were watching wanted to join in.  It would have people just starting out.  It would have some really great dancers mixed in with some people just learning the basic steps.  It would have people learning from one another.  Off in one corner someone would be learning the Charleston.  Another corner would have someone learning the Jitterbug.  Another corner someone would be doing the West Coast Swing.  But they’d all be dancing to the same rhythm going deeper and getting better.  And now we’re back to the point: Why be part of a faith community, a church?  Because we learn best to dance when we show up on the dance floor.

Filed Under: Manuscripts, Sermons Tagged With: , ,

Mission Drop

June 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Amazing Stories - Wrestle Mania

Amazing Stories – Mission Drop
Sycamore Creek Church
Mark 1:1-11 & Acts 2:38-41
Tom Arthur
June 24, 2012 

Peace Friends!

What’s your life mission?  Are you on a mission?  Or are you just plodding along each day reacting to whatever comes your way?  Being on a mission adds a deep sense of purpose to your life.  Many of us wander around aimlessly because we haven’t signed up for a mission.

I remember the first deep sense of mission I received in life.  I was in a class in college called “African American Experience.”  We were watching a Dateline undercover investigation of racism in Chicago. Not the deep south.  North. Chicago. Midwest.  Big city.  Two guys, one black and one white, went around town with hidden cameras and interacted with the same people and situations.  They both went to a used car salesman.  The white guy was given a “rock bottom” price $1500 cheaper than the black guy.  They both went to a department store.  The white guy was given great service.  The black guy was followed around the store by a sales associate who didn’t talk to him.  They both went to rent the same apartment.  The landlord was courteous to the black guy who went first, but when the white guy asked about the neighborhood, the landlord said, “It’s OK, but it’s going downhill.  I showed it to ‘one of them’ earlier today.”  I came out of that class furious, with a righteous anger I had never experienced before.  In that moment God signed me up for a mission: to make right the injustice I had just seen.  Later on I gave that mission a name: racial and economic reconciliation.

What’s your mission?  Today we’re in the middle of a series called Amazing Stories.  We’re looking at some of the lesser known but still amazing stories in the Bible.  There are a lot of different stories in the Bible about being on a mission.  Today I want to look at a story of the beginning of Jesus’ mission.  And it’s a mission that we all can join.  It’s the amazing story of baptism.  Let’s read it.

Mark 1:1-11 NLT
Here begins the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.
In the book of the prophet Isaiah, God said, 

“Look, I am sending my messenger before you,
and he will prepare your way.
He is a voice shouting in the wilderness:
‘Prepare a pathway for the Lord’s coming!
Make a straight road for him!'”  

This messenger was John the Baptist. He lived in the wilderness and was preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had turned from their sins and turned to God to be forgiven.  People from Jerusalem and from all over Judea traveled out into the wilderness to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. His clothes were woven from camel hair, and he wore a leather belt; his food was locusts and wild honey. He announced: “Someone is coming soon who is far greater than I am — so much greater that I am not even worthy to be his slave.   I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”

One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and he was baptized by John in the Jordan River.  And when Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens split open and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with you.”

Here we see Jesus joining the mission of God.  Have you ever seen one of those spy movies where one spy drops a case or bag or box or envelope in one spot for another spy to pick up and run with the mission?  That’s kind of what’s happening here.  John the Baptist is making a mission drop with Jesus.  Jesus is picking up the package (or going under the water) and running with the mission.

Now this story by itself doesn’t tell us much about the amazing character of this mission.  For that we have to look elsewhere.  One great place is in a sermon that Peter, one of Jesus’ fellow “spies”, preaches after Jesus has ascended (it’s the same sermon that Gaelen McIntee preached on a couple of weeks ago on graduation Sunday).  Let’s take a look at parts of that sermon and we’ll see that the character of the mission of God is closely related to the character of water itself.  Maybe that’s why baptism is done with water.

Death: Acts 2:38 NLT
Peter replied, “Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Water is a dangerous thing.  Water can mean death.   This past week I took my 19-month-old son to the tot swim at the Holt Jr. High. He had never seen or been in a pool before.  He was naturally anxious and nervous as we stepped down into the pool.  For about the first thirty minutes he had a choke hold on me and wouldn’t even consider letting go.  He had a healthy respect for the dangerous situation he was in.  Should he let go, I think he instinctually knew that things would not turn out well (of course, as his daddy, I would do all I could to never let that happen).  Water is death.

When we sign up for the mission of God by being baptized, something in us has to die.  We have to turn from our sins.  This is called repentance.  You have to give up every other mission you’re on to join this one. It’s no good to think you can be on two missions.  You can’t.  If you’re going to join God’s mission, all other missions in your life must be put to death in the waters of baptism.  This doesn’t mean that you no longer care about other things.  It means that you now see all things you care for through the lens of the mission of God.

The mission of God is characterized first by dying to self, repenting, and turning toward God.

Cleansing: Acts 2:38 NLT
Peter replied, “Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

One of the important uses of water is to clean dirty things.  This past week I had drywallers working in my basement.  I was amazed at the speed with which they worked.  They put up seven rooms of drywall and a hallway in a day and a half.  One time I went down to see how things were going, and one of the guys was putting screws in a piece of dry wall on the ceiling while a fine dust was showering down on top of him.  Later that day when they left, he said to me, “I’ll give you an ‘air’ hand shake because my hands are so dirty and dusty.”  I looked at his hands and was glad he didn’t want to shake my hand.  He was dustier than I had seen anyone in a long time.  I’m sure when he got home he immediately jumped in the shower to wash away all that dust, and when he got out of the shower, I’m sure he felt like a new man.  Water cleanses.

When you sign up for the mission of God by being baptized, you die to the sin in your life and you are cleansed from it.  The mission of God is characterized by forgiveness, God’s forgiveness of our sins, and our forgiveness of others’ sins against us.  Just as water cleans the hands after a long day of working, so too does baptism clean our souls and make us pure before God.

The mission of God is characterized by the forgiveness of sins.

Life – New life through Union with Christ: Acts 2:38 NLT
Peter replied, “Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Water is life.  Have you ever run out of water and been unable to get water for an extended period of time?  There’s an amazing survival story about a guy named Aron Ralston that’s told in a movie titled 127 Hours.  Aron was hiking by himself in slot canyons out west when a boulder fell on him and pinned his hand to the side of the canyon.  He was pinned there for 127 hours before freeing himself by cutting his own forearm off.  Public Service Announcement: The biggest mistake he made in this whole ordeal was that he was hiking by himself and he hadn’t told anyone where he was going.  So how was he going to survive?  Almost miraculously there was no bleeding, so Ralston really had to confront one major obstacle: how could he stay alive until someone found him.  What’s your number one problem in this situation?  Besides staying warm, it’s water.  You can live for days or weeks without food. But you can only go a fraction of that time without water.

Water is life, and the waters of baptism give you new life in Jesus.  If we die in the waters of baptism, then we die with Jesus.  But when we come up out of the water, we also join in the resurrection of Jesus.  Our dead dry bodies are given new spiritual life.  We are in a very real sense, reborn.

Life – Holy Spirit: Acts 2:38 NLT
Peter replied, “Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

There’s another sense in which we are given new life in the waters of baptism.  We are given the gift of the Holy Spirit.  What exactly is the Holy Spirit?  The Holy Spirit is God’s presence working in you (transformation) and through you (ministry to others).  God’s love being made real in your life.  God’s friendship helping you to learn new habits and continue to turn from all those old ones.  Because even though we’re cleansed and forgiven of our sins in the waters of baptism, those old habits continue to intrude on the mission of God.  They’re like old enemy spies that keep showing up at inopportune times.  Except the difference is that God’s presence, God’s love, God’s friends, God’s Holy Spirit walks with you in a new and powerful way helping you to overcome those old habits and sins.  As one preacher has said, “Sin remains but it does not reign” (John Wesley).

The mission of God is characterized by new life in the waters of baptism.

Community – Acts 2:41 NLT
Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church — about three thousand in all.

What do all these things have in common: soda, tea, coffee, beer, wine, juice?  There’s probably a lot of things that they have in common but here are two that are pertinent to our discussion this morning: they’re mostly water, and they’re best shared with friends.  Water is something that community gathers around.  We gather around it when we choose where to live.  We gather around it at the table, in a restaurant, at the café, in a coffee shop, and around the communion table in worship.

Water is community, and in the waters of baptism you join the community called the church.  Baptism is the door to the church.  Now the church gets a lot of negative press in the world these days, some of it earned, but at its most fundamental level, the church is the community of friends seeking to follow Jesus.  It’s a community on a mission, and that mission is best done with spiritual friends.

The mission of God is characterized by the community you join in the waters of baptism.

So there’s only one question left for you today:

Will you join the mission of God?

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: , , , , ,