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Team

February 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Bod4God 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Davis&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.

 

TeamUSA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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:

 

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.

Yellowstone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Mole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

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Act Your Wage

November 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

strapped

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strapped – Act Your Wage*
Sycamore Creek Church
November 17/18, 2013
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Anyone feeling strapped these days?  Too little money?  Too much debt?  The proverbs say:

Just as the rich rule the poor,
so the borrower is servant to the lender.
~Proverbs 22:7 NLT

The word “servant” is really too weak of a translation here.  It’s more like “slave” or “in bondage” or “strapped.”  Jesus says that you can’t serve both God and money.  What we found out last week is that we don’t serve money.  We serve God.  Money serves us as we serve God.

Here’s an Old School Rule: If you didn’t have the money to buy something you wanted, you weren’t allowed to buy it.  Before the great depression, 2% of houses had a mortgage on them.  Forty years later only 2% don’t have a mortgage.  Then in the last decade we’ve had quite a ride when it comes to houses and mortgages, haven’t we?  According to the New York Times, “More than a third of homeowners who received loan modifications under TARP’s mortgage modification program have since stopped paying” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/business/new-defaults-trouble-a-mortgage-program.html).  Defaulting on your mortgage is becoming more and more common.

There’s a certain mindset of entitlement in our culture.  We expect that when we graduate college at 22, we deserve the same lifestyle of our parents.  So we keep driving cars like our parents.  We keep eating out like our parents.  We try to live in houses like our parents.  We expect instant middle class status without the hard work of getting there.

We are a generation of pretenders and posers.  There’s a scene in the movie Cinderella Man where Mae Braddock, the wife of James Braddock, the Cinderella Man boxer, goes to see his manager, Joe Gould, who lives in a fancy expensive apartment building.  When she first knocks on the door, he’s home but doesn’t answer it.  She keeps knocking. She yells at him from outside his door, “Don’t hide in your fancy apartment, I want to talk to you.” He ignores her for a while but then finally lets her in. When she comes in, she sees that the apartment is almost empty. There’s a card table and some chairs. She says, “I didn’t know, I mean I thought that…” He says, “That’s the idea. Always keep your hands up.”  That’s how many of us are posing for the rest of the world, with our hands up hiding our real financial situation.  Unfortunately, many of us are using debt and credit cards to pose.

The proverbs say:

One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing
~Proverbs 13:7 NIV

There are three kinds of people:

  1. The Haves
  2. The Have-Nots
  3. The Have-Not-Paid-for-What-They’ve-Got

Today I want to look at three values essential to becoming unstrapped.  I want to give you some really practical advice for getting your financial house in order.

1. Embrace the Value of Self-control

How’s your self control these days?  How’s your self control when it comes to money?  The proverbs say:

Like a city breached, without walls,
is one who lacks self-control.
~Proverbs 25:28 NRSV

Without self control we’re like an ancient city without a wall, defenseless to attacks.  We’re vulnerable to debt and exorbitant interest of credit cards and pay day loans and pawn shops.  We’re like the little kid in the grocery line screaming, “I want it now!”  Except instead of getting the candy bar or the match box car, the financial stakes are bigger!

This is a generalization, and while it is not always true, I think it has some truth in it.  Women tend to nickel and dime and quarter their way into debt.  They buy shoes and belts to match the shoes and pay hundreds of dollars on hair cuts and dying (one survey found that money spent on hair added up to $50,000 over a lifetime! http://main.stylelist.com/2010/03/29/the-price-of-pretty-women-spend-50-000-on-hair-over-lifetime/).  Then there’s the nails to match it all.  Nickle.  Dime.  Quarter.  Dollar.  Five Dollars.  Ten Dollars.

Men on the other hand do the debt thing in one big purchase.  A new car.  $20,000.  A time share.  $10,000.   A boat.  $30,000.  An ATV.  $10,000.  A new flat screen TV, Blue-ray DVD player, surround sound, leather couch, wall mount, and upgrade of all old DVDs to Blue-ray.  $15,000.  Boom goes the dynamite!  And friends, you’re in debt.

What we need to do is show a little self control.  We need to practice saying, “No.”  Say it with me now:

Ladies – Do you really need to get your nails done twice a month? NO!
Men – Do you really need to play golf twice a month?  NO!
Do you really need a $4 cup of coffee each day? NO!
Do you really need your kid to have an iPhone 5abc-xyz?  NO!
Do you really need a brand new car?  NO!

Say NO! for a little while so we can say YES for the rest of our lives!

2. Embrace the Value of Sacrifice

Are you willing to make a sacrifice to attain something better?  The author of Hebrews says:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross…
Hebrews 12:2 NIV

So we’re to focus on Jesus who was willing to sacrifice his own life for something bigger.  Sacrifice means giving up something you love for something you love even more.  Give it up to gain.  Give up the belts to gain.  Give up the shoes to gain.  Give up the fancy hair and nails to gain.  Give up the new car to gain.  Give up the boat to gain.  Give up the fancy house in the fancy neighborhood to gain.  Give it up, sacrifice, to gain.

Let me give you just one example.  The average person eats out a lot!  If you brought your own lunch every day to work, brown-bagging it daily saves you $100,000 over a life time!  $100,000!

The other night a Kirby salesman came by the door around 8PM.  It was a college student.  He used a nice line on me to pull at my heart strings.  He said, “I just need one more demonstration to go home tonight.  You don’t have to buy anything.  Just let me show you it for about ten or fifteen minutes.”  The poor guy was obviously tired, and I let him in.  Then after way more than ten or fifteen minutes, some other guy came to the door and did the sales job.  I was getting really annoyed at this point.  I told him he had two minutes to make his pitch.  He gave me the price: $1600.  $1600 for a vacuum cleaner!  Now it was a nice machine.  It really was.  It was the Porsche of vacuum cleaners, and I have no doubt that you get what you pay for.  But I don’t have $1600 for a vacuum cleaner.  He said to me, “What’s keeping you from buying it today?  The down payment?  The monthly payment?  What?’’  I said, “The cost.  I’ll give you $100.”  That was the end of the conversation.  The salesman left my house while the poor college student was there another twenty minutes packing back up the Porsche of vacuum cleaners.

We’re all asking the wrong question.  We’re asking:   How much down?  Or how much each month?  What we really need to ask is what’s the real cost?

Let’s go back to our credit cards.  The average credit card balance is $14,517.  You wracked up that 18% debt on your credit card with a trip to Disney World, the surround sound system, the flat screen TV, video games, new clothes, shoes, etc.  Now you’ve got to pay back $14,517, assuming you don’t add any more debt to it!  If you pay $291 per month (the minimum payment) on $14,517 at 18% it will take 52 years to pay off the debt and you will have paid a total interest of $41,414 (http://www.federalreserve.gov/creditcardcalculator/Default.aspx)!  You’re paying almost three times what it cost you to buy that stuff just in interest alone!  But that’s not all its costing you.

Let’s say that instead of buying all that stuff you saved the money and invested it.  Many say that historically the stock market makes 10%.  I found data that showed a 50 year average stock market return at 9.2% (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/story/2011-10-17/rate-of-return-for-stocks/50807868/1).  But let’s use some real investment numbers.  When Sarah had a best seller and she made more than I did that year, we invested the maximum we could that year in a Roth IRA in a socially screen mutual fund called Pax World Growth.  We like the socially screened aspect of the fund because it means we’re not making money off of companies that pollute or discriminate or make money off of weapons, etc.  You get the point.  This year that fund is making 17%.  It’s a good year.  Since inception in the 1970s, Pax World Growth has made 8.46%.  We also opened a 529 college savings plan for Micah.  We decided to go again with a socially screened fund through the DC College Savings Plan.  Year to date that fund is making 22.44%.  Since inception in the 80s it’s making 7.45%.

Back to the credit card debt of $14,517.  If you didn’t spend that money and instead saved it.  What would happen?  Let’s take the lower of our investment returns and assume a 7% return on your investment.  If you saved $14,517 at 7% for 52 years (the same time it would take you to pay it off with minimum payments), you’d end up making $489,590.  But let’s take this a step further.  Let’s add the minimum payment of $291/month to your investment.  So every month you’re also putting $291 into that same investment account.  At the end of 52 years, you’d have $2,236,395 in the bank!

(These calculations come from Dave Ramsey’s website: (http://www.daveramsey.com/article/investing-calculator/lifeandmoney_investing/#/entry_form)

So what’s the real cost of going into debt on your credit card for $14,517?  The real cost is over $2,000,000!  How much of a difference could you make in this world if you had money like that?

3. Embrace the Value of Planning

Most of us fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to money.  Going back to the wisdom of the Proverbs:

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.
~Proverbs 21:5 NIV

You can wander into debt but you can’t wander out.  There are three basic planning tools you need to get unstrapped.

  1. A Budget: Budgeting is fairly simple.  It just takes some time and effort and focus.  If you don’t know how to budget, sign up for a FinancialPeaceUniversity class in the area.  There are eleven Churches in the Lansing Region that are hosting them right now.  I also want to take budgeting a step further.  In our culture, finances are taboo.  What you make and how you spend it are “private.”  That may be our culture’s value, but it’s not a Jesus value.  Share your budget with someone else outside of your family.  Ask them for input on what you make and what you spend.  Ask someone who manages their money better than you manage yours.
  2. An emergency fund:  Save $1000 for emergencies.  You’ll never get ahead if you are always in crisis mode.  You’ve got to have a cushion so that when you hit a crisis, it doesn’t sink you.  To build this emergency fund you may need to sell stuff, go heavy on the coupons, or even get an extra job.  Many of you know that over the last two and a half years Tabitha Martin has been living with us getting back on her feet after being at Maplewood.  She’s just moved out into her own place this past week.  I asked her if I could share what’s happened to her recently.  Over the two and a half years she’s lived with us she’s saved $3000.  About two weeks ago she was in a car accident and totaled her car.  Because she had $3000 on hand, she was able to buy a car with cash.  But she didn’t spend it all because she also needed money for a down payment on her apartment and a future emergency fund.  So in the last week she bought a new car, made a down payment on her apartment, and retained an emergency fund for the future all because she had a big emergency fund to begin with.  If she hadn’t had it, she’d be back to square one.  But because she had the emergency fund, she was able to continue moving forward with her life.  Thank you God!
  3. The debt snowball: The basic idea here is to pay off your smallest debt first.  Then take the payment of that debt and add it to your payment on your second smallest debt.  Once you’ve got those two debts paid off, then add those two payments to your third smallest debt.  And on and on until you’ve snowballed your way out of debt.  To get a really great picture of what this can look like on the ground, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyF4mZFtfZs.

So why are you talking about this in church?  Because nobody teaches you this in school.  And unfortunately, most of our parents don’t talk about it.  Maybe they don’t talk about it because they’re so deep in debt and strapped that they don’t have any wisdom to share with their kids except, “Don’t do as I do.”  So we talk about money in the church because money is spiritual.  Money and things are the number one competitor with God for our hearts.  The Bible says more about money than just about anything else.

What do you think you do for the glory of God if you had no school loans?  If you had no car loans?  If you had no credit card debt?  If you had no home equity loans?  If you had no mortgage?  What kind of impact could make on this world?  How could you help bring the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven?

God, help us have some self-control. Help us sacrifice something good for something better.  Help us live by a plan with our money so that our money can bring you glory and honor.  In Jesus’ name and by the power of your Spirit, amen!

*This sermon was adapted from a sermon by Craig Groeschel

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