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The Discouraged and Disbelieving *

March 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

The Gospel of the Nobodies: The Discouraged and Disbelieving *
Sycamore Creek Church
March 20/21, 2016
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

What’s your faith story? I grew up in a Christian home and was very active in church all the way through graduation from high school. When I went off to college I began to ask a lot of questions about the faith I had growing up. Those questions and my doubts and uncertainties grew to a climactic moment my sophomore year in college. I was sitting in an orchestra concert. The band was playing a chaotic piece that was a tribute to D-Day. There were trumpets placed all around the auditorium and they were making random noises. The music was intended to create the feeling of landing on the beaches of Normandy and having snipers shooting at you. The music began to symbolize for me my inner state. I felt the snipers of discouragement and disbelief shooting at me from every angle. The arrangement of that piece of music slowly but surely morphed into the classic hymn, It Is Well. The chorus from that hymn goes: It is well, with my soul. The hymn was intended to make you feel secure amidst the chaos of the beginning of the piece, but because I was uncertain about this whole faith thing and it was not well with my soul, the hymn only amplified the chaos I felt inside. I fell apart right in the middle of that big auditorium crying and sobbing into my hands so that no one would see me. Over the next several months I left the faith. I didn’t believe any of it any more. And yet, I somehow kept following Jesus. And here I am today, still following Jesus helping others follow Jesus amidst their own doubts and uncertainties.

Here’s the problem that many of us face: We think that following Jesus is for those who have it all together. But the point of this message is this: following Jesus is for the discouraged and disbelieving.

Today we continue a series called The Gospel of the Nobodies. The point of this series is that God relentlessly pursues those whom society (or even the church) considers “nobodies”: The night shift workers, the disabled and sick, the demon possessed, the prostitutes and prodigals, the homeless, and today we’re looking at how God relentlessly pursues the discouraged and disbelieving.

We’re going to do something weird today. This whole series has been a little weird. Easter is next week, but we’re going to look at some stories that take place after the resurrection. We’re going to jump to the resurrection so that when we celebrate it, we’ll realize it isn’t just for the ones who’ve got it all together.

Throughout this series we’ve been looking at the Gospel of Luke. Gospel means “Good News” and Luke tells the story of the good news of Jesus with special attention to the people that society considers “nobodies.” Let’s look at the last chapter of Luke’s Gospel:

While they were talking…Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
~Luke 24:36-40 NRSV

In the last few verses of the last chapter of Luke, the followers of Jesus find an empty tomb, but joy and excitement weren’t the first emotions. Their first emotions were discouragement and disbelief. Let’s unpack this experience that they must have been having by looking at the bigger context of the crucifixion and resurrection.

The crucifixion and resurrection took place in Jerusalem over the Passover celebration. Passover is the celebration of the Israelites’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh’s heart got harder and harder as Moses kept coming back to him demanding that the people be freed from slavery. It took death to finally soften Pharaoh’s heart. The Israelites were told to take the blood of a lamb and put it over their doorposts so that the angel of the Lord would pass over their house and not kill the first-born child. Passover is the annual retelling and remembering of that moment of deliverance when God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. We learn from that story that God will be faithful no matter what.

During the celebration of Passover Jerusalem swelled from a population of about 100,000 to over a million. This was all in one square mile of land. Jerusalem is completely overrun with people at Passover. This means that at the crucifixion of Jesus, hundreds of thousands likely saw him hung on the cross. So when reports began spreading that he had resurrected there were likely a variety of responses. Thousands on the hillside of Golgotha saw him dead. Imagine the dismissive disbelief of thousands at the news of his resurrection. Then there were the devout followers of Jesus who likely would have been shocked and discouraged. The outcasts who had been welcomed, the paralyzed who was healed, the Centurion soldier’s servant who was healed, the demon possessed who had been set free, the tax collectors who had been shown love, the prostitutes who had been respected as more than just a sex object. These followers would have likely been thinking, “The only one who had ever treated me as human being was nailed to the cross, and now his body’s not in the tomb?!”

Then there is the response from the inner circle, the disciples, both the men and women who traveled with him everywhere. The women were the first to attend to Jesus’ dead body and they were the first to find the tomb empty:

While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified…
~Luke 24:4-5 NRSV

They’re perplexed and terrified at the empty tomb. So they go back and tell the men what they’ve found:

But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
~Luke 24:11 NRSV

The men don’t believe them. I mean, how reliable really is a woman? Or so their culture said. All of them are disbelieving, except Peter. Kind of. Peter runs off to see what was going on at the tomb. After he finds it empty, what was Peter thinking as he walked back from the empty tomb? What have I lost over the last three and a half years? Can I get my fishing business back? What about the others? The women who experienced fear are having their hearts beginning to open up to hope. What about James and John? They’re probably wondering, “Can we show our faces in Galilee without being the laughing stock of the town?” The empty tomb is not met with joy, but outright disbelief and discouragement. Nothing was working out the way they had envisioned it would, the way they’re supposed to. That’s a recipe for discouragement.

We all experience discouragement from time to time. Some of us more often than others. Things don’t go the way they’re supposed to go. We are disappointed that God didn’t make them go differently. You invest in a company over decades and you get a pink slip instead of a pension. You go to the doctor and before she says anything, her face tells you, “The cancer has returned.” You get the late night phone call that tells you “I’m sorry, your loved one is gone.”

I experienced a bit of discouragement recently. Not quite to the level of the above scenarios but discouragement nonetheless. The night before we were to fly to Florida to visit family I got sick. Really sick. I had a 101 degree temperature. I was shivering uncontrollably. My teeth were chattering like one of those teeth-chattering toys. I had cramps in my abdomen. It felt like someone was jabbing me up under my ribs. We had to make a decision, and expecting that I was the first wave of a round of all-family illness we canceled our flight to Florida and dug into the discouragement of February in Michigan. That’s not how things are supposed to go. Discouragement.

Part of what Luke wants us to see in the discouragement and disbelief of the first Easter is for us to see ourselves in the disciples. Where are you experiencing discouragement right now?

Right about this point Luke shifts the focus of the story out of the inner circle and looks wider. We find that discouragement and disbelief don’t stop God from displaying the power of the resurrection. Besides the women, the first people Jesus appears to after his resurrection are two people with no other mention in the Bible. Two “nobodies” in the church.

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him…
~Luke 24:13-16 NRSV

Jesus appears to Cleopas and one other unnamed person who are walking on the road to Emmaus. They don’t recognize him. Perhaps this was because they didn’t know him well enough to recognize him. Jesus explains the scriptures to them, and while eating, they realize it is Jesus. (This is why we have an “open table” at communion. Many who don’t recognize Jesus may meet him while sharing a meal with him.) Notice that Jesus doesn’t appear first to the “inner circle”, the remaining eleven disciples. Jesus doesn’t appear to Pilate and the religious leaders saying, “Ha. Ha. Joke’s on you. I get knocked down, but I get up again.” Jesus showed up to the low-profile followers who aren’t mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “I don’t care how much you’re known or not. I have come to bring you hope.”

Why would Jesus show up to the low-profile followers?   Because God relentlessly pursues those whom society and even the church considers as “nobodies.” Jesus had a bigger vision. It’s not just the high profile few to bring the message of Jesus’ good news. It’s not just the twelve high-profile who brought the gospel to the world. Everyday ordinary people brought the gospel to the world. People who were never even given a name.

After this encounter with the “outer circle” Jesus appears to the inner circle. Jesus appears next to his doubting and disbelieving apostles. They thought they were seeing a ghost! They were terrified.

Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
~Luke 24:45-48 NRSV

Because Jesus showed up first to the “outer circle” I think that “you are my witnesses” means all of you. Not just the “up front” people at Sycamore Creek. But the “outer circle” of Sycamore Creek. Those who may not have a “title” or even a “role” at the church, but you’re just walking on the road following Jesus. You are Jesus’ witnesses. You are those who are to proclaim the good news of Jesus to the “nobodies” of our society. Jesus is shared most expansively through ordinary everyday disciples.

Let’s consider how this works for a moment. Jeremy invited Jim Firos to Sycamore Creek. But Jim has invited countless people including Linda and John. John then invited his daughter Heather and RJ and their kids. Jim also invited Jessica and Shawn. And Jessica and Shawn invited his parents Jerry and Mary, their friend Maria and her daughter, and their neighbors Jessica and Alehandra. Alehandara invited his dad Jim. Everyday followers of Jesus being witnesses and proclaiming the good news of Jesus.

Or consider this. Jenna and Blake invited Jenna’s sister, Pam. Now Pam is full of all kinds of doubts and uncertainties about this whole faith and church thing. But she became a partner several years ago and plays and sings in the band. She invited Justin, who was baptized and is now on staff at our church. Pam also invited her friend Liz who invited her friend Brian.   But let’s not stop there. Because Pam, remember she’s someone with lots of questions about faith, also invited her friend Katie who was baptized this past summer and has joined the band. Katie then invited her wife Nikki. Katie also invited her parents Nancy and Dwayne and her sister Aubryn who played with Jeremy at Teen Fuel Café last Sunday night.

Next week is Easter. Who are your friends who are discouraged and disbelieving? Who needs to hear the good news of Jesus? What three friends can you invest in and invite to Easter? It’s not just the pastor’s job to invite people. It’s not just the “inner circle” who invites people. It’s every unknown and unnamed follower of Jesus. Who is God calling you to invite?

Prayer
God, give me faith when I don’t have faith. Give me the power of your resurrection at work in my life even when I am discouraged and disbelieving. Help me follow you. And open the door for me to invite those around me who are wrestling with discouragement and disbelief. Soften their hearts so that they might join me in seeking you as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Amen.

*This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Glen Shoup

 

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I Am the Resurrection

October 20, 2014 by Leave a Comment

IAmJesus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am the Resurrection
Sycamore Creek Church
October 19/20, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

What’s the closest you’ve come to dying?  When I was a teenager I went to a church that was about thirty minutes from my home.  Youth Group was Sunday night.  Often when youth group was over I would hang out with friends for another couple of hours.  Then I would drive home.  One Sunday night on the drive home I fell asleep while driving on the highway at sixty-five or seventy MPH.  I woke up when I hit the rumble strips, but it was too late.  I was already heading toward the steep embankment.  I hit a mile marker and it snapped off and flew into the air.  Quickly I was off the pavement and onto the grass.  I slammed on the brakes and came to a stop just in between two trees.  I sat in my car stunned at what had just happened.  Eventually a tow truck came and pulled me out, and I have never again driven when I felt that sleepy.  I came too close to dying.

Death.  It’s something we all can look forward to.  If you are alive, you will die.  A close brush with death makes us ask some hard questions.  What comes after death?  Am I prepared to die?  Have I lived a life worthy of the gift that it is?

Today we continue the series: I Am Jesus.  And we’ll be exploring a moment that Jesus had a brush with someone else’s death.  Throughout this series we’ve been exploring the “I am” statements of Jesus written down by one of his closest followers, John.  There are seven “I am” statements.  They are:

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

Today’s verse is:

I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.
~John 11:25 NRSV

What exactly is a resurrection?  A resurrection is when something was dead and comes  back to life.  Of course, Jesus is known for his resurrection, but his resurrection is not the only resurrection recorded in the Bible.  The other is Lazarus.

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
~John 11:1-3 NRSV

Many of us are in a state of bad news today.  The one you love is sick and dying with cancer.  The job you love is going away.  The dream marriage turned into a nightmare.  A close friendship might not be working out.  The school principal calls to talk about your teenager, and it’s not about the honor roll.  I have received some bad news lately.  My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  You may have recently received some bad news yourself.  So how does Jesus respond to the bad news he receives?

But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
~John 11:4 NRSV

Hmmm…Jesus has a very interesting (or as my son says, “in-stir-ing”) response.  Jesus then does nothing for two days before deciding to go.  His disciples tell him it’s dangerous to go to where Lazarus died, because last time they were there they almost got stoned.  Jesus tells them that Lazarus has fallen asleep, and he is going to wake him from the darkness.  His disciples say that if Lazarus is just asleep then all will be OK.  Jesus realizes they’re taking him literally and says that Lazarus really is dead, and he’s going to show you God’s glory.  Thomas responds, I think rather sarcastically, “Well, let’s go and die too!”

Today I want to look at three different ways we die.

1. Thomas: Dead in your Doubts
As I just mentioned, Thomas responds with what I think is a sarcastic response:

Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
~John 11:16 NRSV

Thomas really has got his doubts about this whole Jesus thing.  He’s really not sure he believes that Jesus is who he is claiming to be.  Thomas is dead in his doubts.

How many of you have had doubts?  Those with your hands down can polish your halo when you get home.  The rest of us are being honest.  We all have doubts.  We all are uncertain about a lot of things.  All of us have prayed for something and God could but didn’t.  Or maybe a professor at college shook your faith.  Or suffering caused you to ask: “If God is all powerful why didn’t he cure so and so?”

Our church took a momentous step last week by voting to buy the old Calvary UMC building and move our Sunday morning venue from a school to a church.  We’ll no longer be a “Church in a School.”  We’ll be a “Church in a Church.”  I’m very excited about this venue change, but if I’m honest I’m also a bit anxious and even have some doubts.  It’s like having a baby.  You’re full of joy but nervous too.  Here’s the crazy thing about being a leader.  You have to choose a way forward in spite of your uncertainties.  It’s human to have uncertainty.  It’s human to question your own decisions.  It’s even healthy to do these things.  Someone who is unwilling to question their own decisions is probably a psychopath.  Here’s the key: we are only dead in our doubts if we allow our doubts to dictate our decisions.  In faith, we use the brains God gave us, and we seek God’s direction, and we move forward trusting God along the way.

Some of us are dead in our doubts today because we’re letting our uncertainties about life dictate our decisions.

2. Mary: Dead in your Discouragement
Some of us today may be like Thomas, but others of us are like Mary.  We are dead in our discouragement.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.
~John 11:20 NRSV

Notice that Mary didn’t even come to see Jesus.  She thought, “Why bother?  I can’t change anything.”  Some of us are just as discouraged as Mary.  We feel always alone, depressed, stuck in a dead-end job, or that we’ll never have the marriage we thought we would have.  We put on our religious language with Sunday clothes and a smile on our face, but there’s no smile inside.

I think ahead to this new venue.  There is sure to be some discouragement ahead.  We all have dreams for this building.  We all have expectations for this building.  We all have hopes for what can be.  Reality will likely not conform 100% to any of our dreams, expectations, or hopes.  I think it’s important to remember what we call the role renegotiation model.  When you’re expectations are broken, don’t gossip about it to someone else, go talk to the person who broke the expectations and renegotiate.  This means that your expectations have to be up for renegotiation too.  Maybe they were unrealistic to begin with.

The temptation when we get discouraged, especially in a church, is to isolate ourselves.  We stop coming.  We stop leaning on deep spiritual friends.  We just disappear.  Our church isn’t quite big enough to not notice when people disappear, but it’s also a bit too big for me as the pastor to always follow up with everyone.  So don’t let discouragement disconnect you from deep friendships.  You are only dead in your discouragement when you allow your discouragement to drive you away from deep spiritual friendship.

3. Martha: Dead in the Delay
Some of you are like Thomas, dead in your doubt.  Others are like Mary, dead in your discouragement.  But others still are like Martha, dead in the delay.

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
~John 11:17 NRSV

The number of days that Lazarus was dead is important here. It’s important because Martha shared a kind of cultural belief about how dead you were after four days.  It’s not a biblical idea, but it’s a cultural idea.  The belief was that a spirit would stick around for three days, and the body would be “mostly dead.”  But after four days, there’s no coming back.  You’re fully dead.   Jesus has a different set of beliefs.

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”
~John 11:39 NRSV

The King  James Version translates this saying “he stinketh.”  It’s an unholy stink!  Martha believed that if Jesus had been here, her brother never would have died:

Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
~John 11:21 NRSV

Martha is dead in the delay.  Many of us are too.  I’m waiting but…

All my friends are getting married, and I want to get married but there’s no right person.  I want a baby, and all my friends are getting pregnant but it’s not happening for us.  I’m praying for a loved one to experience God’s goodness but they’re getting further away from God.  I’ve been praying for healing for someone but nothing is happening; it’s only getting worse.

It’s important to know that God’s delays are not God’s denials.  Back to our building.  Let me tell you, it has been a fourteen year delay for us getting a building.  In my first year at SCC we ran a capital campaign to begin saving for a building.  In the next five years at SCC we have considered more than thirty buildings.  We have seriously looked at and considered nine different options: Property on College Ave, the old Girl Scout building in Holt, the old L&L building in Holt, buying our current office location, two churches that wanted to move but needed to sell their building first, two churches that were interested in merging with us, and the old Alternative School Building in Holt which we voted positively on and then the whole thing fell apart.  But, God willing, and Mt. Hope votes positively today to sell us the building, the delay will soon be done.

While Martha was seemingly dead in the delay, she still shows amazing faith:

But even now I [Martha] know that God will give you [Jesus] whatever you ask of him.”
~John 11:22 NRSV

Martha says, “Even now.”  Even as we are dead in our doubts, discouragement, and delay.  We need an “even now” moment.  Even now when you are discouraged in your jacked up family.  When your heart is cold and calloused to the things of God.  When someone or some dream really is dead.  Not mostly dead, but really dead.

Sometimes God resurrects you by giving you a new vision.  SCC looked at Calvary UMC once before I got here and decided it wasn’t right.  But between then and now we’ve had a new vision.  We envision seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week. This building looks very different when you think of it as one of seven venues.  It becomes a launch pad for reaching new people.  We also gained a new vision by seeing how God is using other churches in older more traditional venues reach new people.  New Life Church in Chicago has twenty-one venues on Sunday morning alone and most of them are in older church buildings.  Cornerstone Church, the largest UMC church in Michigan, has successfully launched a new venue in an old Christian Scientist building that is now reaching 200-300 people every Sunday.  God resurrected our search for a building by giving us a new vision.

Jesus is in the business of resurrecting that which is dead.

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
~John 11:23-26 NRSV

The resurrection is not an event.  It is a person.  It’s not just what Jesus does.  It’s who Jesus is.

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
You are raised not because of you, but because of Jesus
God is always glorified by what has happened
~John 11:43-44 NRSV

So where are you dead today?  Some of you are dead in your sins.  Your relationship with God is broken, and the choices you’re making are only taking you further away from God.  Turn around and come back.  Jesus says:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
~John 11:25-26

Do you believe?

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Getting Past Your Past – Breaking the Labels that Bind*

April 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment

past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Past Your Past – Breaking the Labels that Bind*
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
Easter 2014

Friends, Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Today we celebrate Easter and the power of God to take that which is dead and raise it to new life.  The first fruit of that we see in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. He was dead in his past and God raised him to new life!

Today we also begin a new series called Getting Past Your Past.  I’m really excited about how God’s resurrection power is going to use this series to work in each one of our lives.  Let me give you a preview of what’s coming up.

Next week we’re going to hit on the question of how to forgive those who have hurt us.  Then in week three we’re going to be discussing getting unstuck from your past.  On week four we’ll look at overcoming past money mistakes.  Week five is a unique message.  How do you own up to your own past mistakes and apologize to those you’ve hurt?  It’s part of getting past your past.  Then we’ll wrap up the series with the topic of forgiving yourself.  It’s my hope and prayer that in six weeks you will be able to look back and see God’s grace having worked in your life to free you from the grave of your past and resurrect you into God’s future.  Today we begin the series looking at breaking the labels that bind.

Each one of us has experienced someone in our past calling us or characterizing us in some way that we still carry with us.  We internalize this label and it becomes who we are.  This even happens in the way we tell stories or history.  Fill in the blank:

Attila the __________
Conan the __________
Billy the __________
Buffy the __________
Whinnie the __________
A Little Bit Off
We all have a label that holds us in our past.  I have several labels that I carry around with me.  Tom the “ungenerous.”  Tom the “holy roller.”  Tom the “over-achiever.”  But the one that really sticks with me is Tom “just a little bit off.”  This label comes from a very specific moment in my teenage years with my group of friends that I so desperately wanted to fit in with.  This group of friends started noticing that I didn’t always pick up on the cultural references they would make and the insider jokes that came from them.  The label, “just a little bit off”, came one day when they were referencing a favorite band of theirs saying, “We’re rockin with Dokken.”  Now back in the day, I didn’t know who the band “Dokken” was, and I thought they were saying, “Rockin and dokkin.”  So that’s what I said.  They thought this was hilarious and kept me in the dark about my mistake.  So for about two or three years they would say, “Rockin and dokkin” and laugh.  I thought they found me funny for some reason so I began to say “Rockin and dokkin” quite often.  They’d laugh and then say, “Tom you’re just a little bit off.”  Pretty soon they found all kinds of ways I was a little bit off.  Ironically enough, one of Dokken’s most famous songs is “Breaking the Chains.”  I didn’t break the chains.  But I am today!

Probably one of the reasons I never caught their cultural references was because I lived in a more urban environment, and they all lived in a suburban culture.  I was too busy listening to Vanilla Ice and watching his MTV videos trying to learn how to dance to have any interest in 80s and 90s hair rockers, all apologies to Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, and the rest.  But what did they have on Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, my first live concert?  Ok, so maybe I am still a little bit off.  But today God is resurrecting me from the grave of my past music choices.

The Point
So what is the negative label that usually follows your name?  Here’s a truth I want you to know today.  It’s the whole point of this message:

God’s power is always bigger than your past.  God’s truth is bigger than any current truth in your life.

Even if you own a label that in many ways is true about you, it doesn’t mean it must continue to be true tomorrow.  God can take what is and make it no longer true.  God can and will give you a new God-centered view of yourself.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many books in the Bible says it this way:

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

As we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection today, we see that the grave can lead to the resurrection.  God can resurrect you from your past!  That which held you hostage will hold you no more.  I’d like to look at three ways that God does this.

New Name
First, God will give you a new name.  The prophet Isaiah speaks to Israel after they’ve been conquered by the Babylonian empire and taken into exile saying:

You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.
Isaiah 62:3 NLT

God is in the business of giving new names.  It happens all over the Bible.  Abram and Sari wanted children, and it just wasn’t happening.  But God worked in their life and they became pregnant and God gave them both new names: Abraham and Sarah.  They became the father and mother of many nations.  Jacob means swindler or huckster or usurper.  He was always doing shady stuff with his older twin brother Esau.  God worked in his life and gave him a new name, Israel, which means “one who wrestles with God” or “God will prevail.”  Of course, if you wrestle with God, God will prevail!  Then there’s poor little Gideon.  He was pretty much afraid to stand up to his enemies.  But an angel of God showed up and called him a “Mighty man of valor” and “warrior.”  (By the way, this is always happening to me, angels showing up and calling me a “mighty man of valor.”  Always.)

So what name do you need changed?  I’ve got to say that the name “pastor” has always been a struggle for me. I’ve never really felt like a pastor.  I’m not the warm fuzzy cuddly guy you come talk to who will listen intently, nod, give you lots of encouragement, and send you on your way feeling like you can take on the world.  In an online assessment we use at our church “pastoral” is my bottom leadership trait.  But when September 11 happened I was working at a church and my pastor was on vacation out of town hunting in Colorado.  All the flights were grounded, and I was left to take care of the largest Protestant church in Petoskey.  After that weekend, the church began calling me “pastor.”  I bristled at the name, but eventually experienced a call to be a pastor.  Then I did my first internship at Reveille United Methodist Church in Richmond, VA.  When I got there they all just called me “pastor.”  That summer I became a pastor in my heart because the church looked at me as a pastor, but I still didn’t like the name, “pastor.”  Then I graduated and was appointed by the bishop to Sycamore Creek Church.  I told you all that you didn’t have to call me “pastor Tom” but some of you kept calling me it, but I never referred to myself in that way.  In the last year, you may have noticed that I’ve actually begun occasionally signing my letters “pastor Tom.”  I’m growing into the new name with you.

You will grow into your new name too.  God is going to give you a name and you will grow into that name.  You will be called “forgiven.”  You will be called “overcomer.”  You will be called “spiritual mom.”  You will be called “spiritual leader” to our kids in Kids Creek, our youth in StuREV, or to adults in a small group.  God will give you a new name.

New Purpose
Second, God will give you a new purpose.  Your new name comes with a new purpose.  One of Jesus’ followers was named Simon.  Simon was unpredictable, undependable, and wishy-washy.  He was a fisherman.  Jesus walked by his boat one day and said, “Follow me and you will fish for people.”  Simon, you may look like you’re a lowly fisherman, but you’re going to follow me and become a world-changer.  You’re going to speak eloquently to thousands and thousands of people and through you, they will come to know me. A little later Jesus gave Simon a new name:

Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.
~Jesus (Matthew 16:17 NLT)

If you know the story you’ll know that Peter was not always a rock from that point forward.  He messed up again and again.  Peter denied Jesus three times.  After the resurrection, Jesus forgave and restored him.  But Peter was the preacher on Pentecost, the birthday of the church, and three thousand people came to follow Jesus on that day alone!  Tradition tells us that Peter was so rock solid in his commitment to follow Jesus that he was sentenced to death by crucifixion, and he did not feel worthy to be crucified like Jesus.  So he was crucified upside down.  The negative label that Peter was known for was turned on its head.  He was no longer wish-washy.  Now he was a rock of faith.

God can take the associated label with your name and turn it upside down.  You’re a “tightwad” and God will give you a new purpose to make you generous.  You’re “unfaithful” and God will make you know for your faithfulness.  And on and on and on.  What’s the opposite of your negative label?  That will be God’s new purpose in your life!

Out of our greatest weakness God can grow our greatest strength and purpose.

New Future
Third,God will give you a new future.  The prophet Jeremiah spoke for God to the Israelites as they were in exile in Babylon saying:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you…
Jeremiah 29:11 NLT

Notice that the word is “plans” not “plan.”  There’s not one right plan for you.  There are many good plans for your future.  So you’re “always the bridesmaid and never the bride.”  God’s plans for you may be that you become comfortable in your singleness or that one of many good godly men will come along and you’ll get married.  Or maybe you think your kids will never grow up to be anything, but God will use them in mighty ways.  Or I’ll always have this addiction, and instead you will lead people out of addiction.  Or I’ll never get out of debt, but rather you will get it together and be able to be generous with others and teach others how to do so too.  Or I’ll always be fat, and God will turn you into a P90X superman who trains and inspires others to get in shape too.  Or I’ll always be childless, and in God’s power you’ll have children or adopt or have spiritual children.  God will give you a new future.

Maybe one of the most inspiring stories in the Bible of a new future is the story of Rahab “the prostitute.”   She’s always got the label, “the prostitute.”  The label was true.  She was a prostitute, and there were two kinds of prostitutes in that day.  There was the respectable temple prostitute and the unrespectable prostitute that gets picked up on Cops.  She was the Cops prostitute, but when Israel was conquering the promised land, she helped them out and God honored her choice.  (If you’d like to see how the recent Bible series told the story check it out here.)    She hid the Israelites spies and got to know God.  God brought her a God-fearing man named Salmon and they had children.  The Rahab “the prostitute” became the Great…Great…Great…Great…Great grandmother of…Jesus, the son of God, the savior of the world.  God gave her a new future!  The same God who raised a dead Jesus from the grave, can raise your dead future and give you a new living future.

Friends, here’s the problem.  You can’t break the labels in your own power.  You’re stuck.  Each one of us is broken and wounded in some way or another.  Each of us is a “little bit off” or a lot off.  Each one of us has missed the mark of God’s will for us.  Each one of us is in a pit too deep for us to climb out on our own.  We can’t free ourselves from the labels.  You need the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead to break those labels, give you a new name, a new purpose, and a new future.

Many of you were brought here by God for this very moment.  You think that you came here just to appease your mom or your grandma who are always wanting you to go to church, and well, it’s Easter.  So you finally gave in to their nagging.  But God has another plan for you today.  The plan is that you would know the saving power and grace and mercy and compassion and kindness and love of God that raised Jesus from the dead.  God’s plan for you today is that you ask God to forgive you of your past mistakes and free you to follow Jesus into a new name, a new purpose, and a new future. Here’s how you do it.  Tell the truth about yourself to God.  Stop pretending to be someone you’re not.  God knows it anyway and God already loves you in spite of whatever you think you need to hide.  Telling the truth about yourself is less about telling God something God doesn’t know, and more about getting out of a state of denial in yourself.  Then ask Jesus, God’s son, to forgive you and lead you as a new person.  Paul says

If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
~Paul (Romans 10:9 NRSV)

Will you do that today?  If so, I invite you to pray with me.

Good and gracious God, you showed us your power in the resurrection of your son, Jesus Christ; may that same power raise me from the grave of my past and give me a new name, a new purpose, and a new future.

I’d like to challenge you today to come back and stick it out through this series.  Be here every week.  Let this commitment be the first commitment of your new life in Jesus.  If you’d like to talk more, drop me an email (tomarthur@sycamorecreekchurch.org).  May God give you a new name, a new purpose, and a new future!

 

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

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Quadruple Amputee Swimmer

June 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

philippe croizon

I found this man, Philippe Croizon, quite inspiring.  He’s a quadruple amputee seeking to swim across various challenging passages that connect seven different continents.

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