Notes on the Sermon

Today, we start a new series:

Recalculate - A Series on the Data You Use to Chart Your Life

 More specifically, today's sermon is, Designed to Need Him.

We might think our lives are going pretty good; but, we all can stand some tweaking. Our path to God isn't just dependent on big "recalculations" (like conversion) but also on the small shifts in direction we all need to make. 

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from youwhen I was made in the secret place,when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in yourbook before  one of them came to be. 

Psalm 139:13-16

We are designed for God - that is God's plan - in my life, it is God's plan, not mine. My daily morning prayer should be to seek God's plan. God's answer is to walk with Him and let Him lead. 

In Exodus 33, God tells Moses that His presence will give us rest. My morning meditation also stresses the need for rest. 

God will never give us an assignment where He's not leading. His presence goes with us and gives us rest. 

We are designed to need God in every area of our lives. If things are going badly, it's because we aren't allowing God to lead us. I am not meant to succeed at work, at parenting, at life without God - I am designed to need God. This is why I feel so hollow, so fragile, so stressed. 

God wants and initiates that intimacy with us. The whole of Hebrew scripture is God pursuing us to enter into an intimate, face-to-face relationship with us. 

Forgiveness opens up the gift of His continued presence. He gave up everything to be close to us. God wants that intimacy. Jesus died for it. 

God desires to be present in our lives more than we can ever imagine! 

God's presence is no longer in a fiery pillar - it is now in us - and through us, God interacts with the World. 

God also recalculates to get us back on track when we take the wrong turn. We recalculate by making time to be with God and realize God's presence in our lives. 

...surely I am with you always, to the very end if the age. 

Matthew 28:20

Notes from the Sermon

This is the last sermon in the Brand New series. Next week we're starting a new series - Recalculate: A Series on the Data You Use to Chart Your Life.

This sermon is on regrets. We all have regrets - big and small - and many of us wish we could just go back and talk some sense into our younger self. 

I have no regrets...I just don't care. Not the most productive approach to regret. Running away from regret can lead to more regrets. Neither can we wash the regrets of the past away by doing better in the present. 

Easter gives us all we need to deal with regrets. 

1 Peter 1:3 (NASB) - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Peter knew all about regret. Our regret is fueled by the shock we feel when we do and are something that we never thought  in a million years that we'd do. Some are minor - some are major. We know our regrets and our brokenness. 

We do not have to resign ourselves to a life of regret. Peter's story exemplifies this. 

Living hope replaces bitter regret. 

If the story ends with Jesus' death, it is a hopeless death and a hopeless story and our regrets hang on that cross with a dead man. 

But Jesus is Alive and we have a Living Hope. 

Jesus does not - in any way - regret what He did for you. 

Instead of being crippled with regrets, we are free to live with hope. 

Many people believe Christianity is a call to be nicer, less cool, more serious, etc. But Christianity is a call to a Living Hope - it's a call to a brand new life. 

There is hope for each and every one of us, anchored in joy, celebrating the newness that comes of the Risen Christ. Jesus is Alive and He makes all things New. 

Hallelujah!

Notes from the Sermon

What does God do at Easter that makes us new?

Who do you know who jumps on bandwagons? The term "jump on the bandwagon" has an interesting history. I love the origins of sayings :)

It is the idea of a "free ride" or being on the winning team. 

Matthew 21:1-10 - In this scene the people of Jerusalem jumped on the bandwagon. But, like the seeds planted in shallow soil, the people on the bandwagon jumped off again when it seemed Jesus was no longer on the "winning side."

The Donkey?

Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9-10

A king is coming to rescue us. Jesus rode on the donkey to make sure we know that He is the King. Don't try to put Him in another category - He doesn't fit there. 

Moralism vs. Lordship

There is only one King if your life and you are not it. 

The palm branches and cloaks?

Triumphal celebrations of victorious military leaders were the norm. When you think about it - in those days they were celebrating a military that saved and delivered them from invaders - their deliverance was apparent, up close, and personal. 

Jesus wasn't a military leader - His salvation, His deliverance, His liberation is of a different order. 

License vs. Liberation

Sometimes we cheapen God's grace. To stop at forgiveness is not to tell the whole story. To stop there gives us license to do whatever we want. It cheapens everything - grace, Who Jesus is and what He did. "Jesus is not a license to live how we want and start over with forgiveness when we need it." Jesus is about liberation and a brand new life. 

The word "Hosanna"?

Psalm 118:25 - Hosanna means "Lord save us!"

Real Needs vs. Felt Needs

What we think we need is quite often (most often) not what we need at all. Those are our felt needs - not our real needs. What we need is to walk with Jesus. What we really need us for Jesus to be Lord of your life. 

If we use Jesus as a license rather than except Him as liberator, we will deny Him.  We need to ask and seek and know Who Jesus is, what He did, what He's doing, and what difference that means for you. 

On Trust

I fear that following God will immediately turn me into a modern day Job and holy hazing will make my life a living hell. Then it occurred to me that Job isn't the only story in the Bible - there are tons of people with heaps of conventional blessings coming their way - health, wealth, progeny, happiness, joy, etc. etc. Who's to say where on the continuum my blessings will fall?

The point is that, wherever they fall, it will be good and I will be blessed.

Notes from the Sermon

The title of the series beginning today is Brand New. 

The pastor - like the former pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption - was a police officer. 

Brand new babies are wonderful. When God says He is making things brand new, the world will be something wonderful. 

Luke 18:31-34 Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about. 

The days surrounding Easter are a roller coaster of emotion. This verse contains the low and high point of the Passion. 

Jesus asks:

What do you want me to do for you? (Luke 18:41)

How I answer that question is of vital importance. 

The Kingdom of God is God's rescue of each and every one of us. It is a brand new thing. 

The pastor - years ago - was witnessing with teens in the tenderloin district of San Francisco and an old homeless man told the kids not to stop and pointed his finger at the pastor and says, "And you, you never stop preaching." And here he is. 

God reveals truth to us from unlikely people in unlikely places. 

At times, we are broken. At times, we are blind. 

What should I ask Jesus to do for me? Make me brand new. It's fitting that communion follows and the transformation it brings - making me one with Christ and the People of God :)

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

This morning I emailed the following to my friend about some bad news I had heard this week:

I really and truly don't want to know. It's like the mega-volcano in Yellowstone everyone is posting about - I can't do anything about it, so I'd rather be in the dark.

Of course, I suspect strongly that peace doesn't mean being in the dark or blind to the problems around you, but rather in trusting that God will take care of you.

Moving from there to Facebook, Spiritual Networks posted:

and

I know I am thickheaded and often miss the obvious; but, sometimes I feel like I'm being hit over the head with a holy 2X4 of truth. I think fear is - without a doubt - a huge fault in my makeup because it leads to so many other things - a lack of generosity, a meanness of spirit, a timidity when it comes to doing what is right. My prayer for Lent and beyond is to let go of fear. Please pray for me.

Mixed Emoticons

My best friend's youngest daughter moved out of my best friend's house today with her young son and her husband. Happy is my friend is for her daughter and her daughter's family she still said that she had mixed emotions about the situation. 

She ended with:

:-)  ;-(  :-)

Mixed emoticons...

I have my own mixed emoticons. Dana said today she didn't like cats or dogs anymore. She said she doesn't want pets and her house when she grows up there too much of a mess. I told her we wouldn't be living together then. It's not really that I'm choosing pussycats over my daughter but rather that I know that my peace would be shattered without my animal companions and I wouldn't be a very nice person to live with. I wouldn't be me at all. Anyhow I got an image of myself living alone in a nice little apartment with two kitties and the dog. Nice as that is there is still mixed emoticons. 

Such is life 

:-)  ;-(  :-)