Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
NOTES FROM: Grace in Relationships - February 9 & 10, 2013
INTRODUCTION
·
Introduce myself
·
My privilege to continue the series (Cure vs.
Curse)
·
What is the lie?
o We
do not see God as He is.
o We
do not see ourselves as we are.
· What are the R of GI, the road
of Cyn. D, and the R of Grace? (show diagram)
·
Today, we want to talk about the canvass where
most of this plays out in our daily lives.
·
We can get caught trying to understand
righteousness and grace solely in our own journeys, but true maturity and
growth happens when we understand how the room of Grace changes every
relationship we are in.
PRAYER
When
I was a kid, everyone in my town wanted to play little league, boys and girls
alike. (Today, my kids want to go out and play soccer.) But, when I was younger
baseball actually still was the national pastime. We played after school whiffle
ball. We had homerun derbies. We “played catch” just to enjoy throwing the ball
around and “be” with one another…
As
we got a little older, we began to get involved with the local park district
and some of us even played baseball in school. When this began, something
changed for many of us. No longer were we playing for the love of the game, but
many of us developed a fear
as the games began.
Our
coaches, our teammates and in many cases our parents began to care about “how
well” we played rather than just letting us enjoy the game. And what happened
to us was that we began to feel anxiety instead of freedom in our
relationships. Maybe you’ve experienced something similar in our walk with
Jesus: it started in freedom and now you feel anxious.
When
we begin to ask ourselves: “do I trust a relationship with God?” Our answer can
often turn to “no.” We don’t trust our earthly relationships. Why would we
trust a Father we’ve barely experienced?
And here is the problem: When God comes
to our baseball games, we think He’s judging our every action on the field. We
think He’s waiting till after the game to work on our swing. We think He wants
us to practice harder, run faster, throw farther. Or worse: He’s yelling at us
from the stands. So, it leaves us stuck in the room of good intentions, TRYING
to be a better player… TRYING
to earn grace & righteousness and missing God’s love.
The truth is this: When God comes to
your “baseball games,” He gets there early. He’s made buttons, t-shirts and
hand-made poster board signs to cheer you on. When you run out on the field, he
stands up and makes a fool of Himself. He loves you. Even if you are in right
field and a ball is never hit your way, He’s shouting to the guy next to him
saying, “My kid is playing! Isn’t that amazing!”
In
the room of Good Intentions, someone is always watching to see if you get out
of line. In the room of Grace, the
Father is waiting to applaud you when you trust Him.
Understanding
relationships in the Room of Grace all begins with…
Section #1: Trusting our
Relational God
·
Our God is a relational God. From before there
was time, He was in constant communion. A God in three persons: Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. And, He will remain that way for all eternity.
·
Through Jesus… through the cross, He has invited
us into that intimate relationship with them.
·
How does this play out in Him? With us?
·
We must learn that He is trustworthy. We must
learn that we can trust Him with each and every aspect of our lives. We need
not be afraid of judgment, criticism, or a list of things to work on. Just a
dad who’s our biggest fan.
·
I want to spend some time today in Hebrews 10 (NLT). You can follow along in your Bibles or the
words will be on the screen.
o 17 Then he says, “I will never
again remember their sins and lawless deeds.” 18 And when sins have been
forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices. He has
forgotten all of our faults: past, present and future. So we can rest! Rest in
the goodness of God because of our faith in Him.
o 19 And so, dear brothers and
sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of
Jesus. 20 By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the
curtain into the Most Holy Place. 21 And since we have a great High Priest who
rules over God’s house, 22 let us go right into the presence of God with
sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled
with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure
water. Jesus paved the way for intimacy and vulnerability with
the Father. The grace of the cross is more than enough to give us access to the
God of the universe. You see, THE
CROSS IS THE REVELATION OF YOUR VALUE TO THE FATHER.
o 23 Let us hold tightly without
wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.
Despite all of our human examples and Satan’s lies to distract us, the promise
of an unwavering and loving God allows us to trust Him.
·
The key to all of our earthly relationships: Focus on trusting God alone.
·
The truth is that when we trust that God won’t
disappoint us, we will go to our heavenly Father after “the baseball game” and
ask for His help.
·
He’s willing to work on our stuff with us, but
He wants us to approach and trust Him willingly. If we are resting in our
faith, fully assured of our right standing with the Father, this can become
easy.
·
We are only able to give ourselves away to Him and
others when we are no longer preoccupied with our failure, but with His grace.
What
about…
Section #2: Trusting our
relationships with friends in the Room of Grace?
·
After the author of Hebrews talks of us
approaching and trusting our heavenly Father with confidence, He turns it to
our daily lives. It’s not just about us and God, but really its about all of
His kids.
· Hebrews 10:24-25
o
24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and
good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do,
but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing
near.
·
In the
Room of Good Intentions, we will set up standards, laws and plans of how
“we should act toward others” and it will end up performance based.
·
In the
Room of Grace, we realize:
o We
can only be loved when another is allowed to meet our needs (vulnerability).
o This
begins with the Father…
o He
also lives in our fellow believers (same Spirit lives in them too!).
·
The
Cure stresses the importance this way:
o
No one matures in bitterness.
o
No one gets free in isolation.
o
No one heals rehashing the testimonies of bad
religion.
o
No one gest to love or be loved well in
self-protection.
o
Think of
a time when you’ve tried to work things out on your own… not kept short
accounts… what you needed to do was just talk to the other person (spouse,
friend, parents).
·
Let’s go back to the baseball illustration for a
moment:
o When
we played backyard ball, we were free.
o As
we’ve gotten older, trust,
safety and vulnerability in relationships have gradually dissolved.
o But…
our need for them hasn’t.
·
One of the gifts of the room of grace: rediscovering vulnerable, life-giving
relationships.
·
It begins as we learn to trust God in every
relationship not ourselves.
o If
I’m free from me, then I’m free from you – Todd White
o Sin
finds its power when we hide. We need to realize: I would not actually be loved
less, but more by opening up to God and His kids.
·
So how do we motivate and encourage one another in the room of
Grace?
o James 5:16 Confess your sins to each
other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of
a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
o First,
we must be Vulnerable
enough to trust others who are also learning to trust the Father. ASK FOR
COMMUNITY
o Second,
we must learn to walk by faith
in the righteousness that is ours as the sons/daughters of the living God…
in right standing with the Father. ACTION WITHIN THE COMMUNITY
o ILLUSTRATE using your small group
experiences.
·
My trust isn’t necessarily in them, but in the
Father (who lives in them!).
·
Trying to be right/win the conversation is the
room of Good Intentions and it looks like this:
o I
demand your trust.
o
I see you as a sinner that needs helped getting
fixed.
o
I measure your righteousness.
o
Imagine
if our small groups (the place of life and growth within our church) were
places where you were judged & evaluated.
·
Rooms of grace relationships are very different.
The people there:
o
Ask permission and wait for trust.
o
See you as a saint and believe in transparency.
o
Are convinced you are already righteous.
o
Imagine
if our small groups were places of freedom, acceptance and love without limits?
·
You may notice this looks tough… grace doesn’t
mean we aren’t working hard at our relationships (Paul, by the grace of God,
worked harder than any of us), but our starting place is different!
Now, all of this sounds like it will take some time to learn
with your closer relationships like family, friends, the church and your small
group. The people you probably want to trust.
What about?
Section #3: Trusting God during our “difficult relationships.”
·
There will still be people that are hard to love
even when we’ve taken up residence in the Room of Grace! The writer of Hebrews
concludes this section we’ve been looking at with the idea that we can still
miss grace in our relationships…
·
Hebrews 10:26 (NASB) says, “For if we go on sinning
willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a
sacrifice for sins.”
·
How do I know if I’ve quit sinning? How do I
know I’m pursuing, living and walking in truth?
·
We are recognized by our FRUIT. Luke
6:43-45
·
“A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a
bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are
never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes.
A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an
evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you
say flows from what is in your heart.”
· Let me tell you a story of a time
when it was apparent I had “bad” fruit:
o
In 2009, about 6 months after we had moved to
Illinois, I received a bill from my homeowners association in Ohio. I thought
that strange considering we were up to date when we moved and the house no
longer belonged to us.
o
I called the HOA to get them to drop the
charges… the call did not go well… the man on the other end was non-compliant
and told me if I didn’t pay in the next week I would be sent to collections.
o
I lost my temper… I yelled at him and his
supervisor… after 4 straight days of conversation, they finally dropped the
charges once I’d convinced them I lived in another state and my lawyer would be
sending them the documents to prove it.
o
Needless to say, my heart wasn’t trusting God. I
was operating from a need to win. I was operating out of my pain and
frustration not out of grace… and my fruit showed it.
·
The most disingenuous and disgusting relationships are when
one person has an agenda for the other person’s life. When we try and
manipulate the conversation instead of pulling out the gold in the other
person. This is the room of Good Intentions!
·
Spiritual immaturity in relationships looks like
this:
o
We don’t receive love well.
o
We fail to trust others.
o
Our needs are never met.
o
And we don’t give love away either.
o
This is the room of Good Intentions.
·
What does Spiritual maturity in relationships
look like? Room of Grace relationships with people that we struggle with looks
like this:
o
I let you love me on your terms… not mine.
o
My trust is in the Father… not myself.
o
I see you as God sees you.
·
The cross isn’t just the revelation of your value,
but of EVERYONE’S VALUE!
o
Jesus
left glory for every man, woman and child. He paved the way for the Father to
forget all people’s sins. When someone places their faith in Jesus, the Father
sees them as He sees Jesus no matter our difficulty with that person.
·
Right before Jesus talks about “good trees/good
fruit… bad trees/bad fruit” he says some pretty telling things for us like:
o
Love your enemies and do good to those who hate
you.
o
Bless those who curse and pray for those who
hurt you.
o
Do to others as you would like them to do to
you.
o
Don’t just love those who love you.
o
Don’t only do good to those who do good to you.
o
Don’t judge or condemn, but forgive.
o
Get rid of the log in your eye before looking at
the specks in others.
o Then your reward from heaven will
be very great, and you will be truly acting as children of the Most High, for
He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate,
just as your Father is compassionate.”
·
Let’s return to the baseball analogy one last
time.
o
Can you imagine living a life with no
expectation on others?
o
That you begin to celebrate your teammates
rather than evaluate their performance in the game?
o
Can you imagine just being excited to be on the
field with them?
o
Seeing them as God’s beloved kids letting Jesus
determining your reality?
o
I know
this is hard to picture if you are a boss, a parent, a supervisor, or a coach.
It’s not that we don’t evaluate and instruct people when we are in authority.
Its that we don’t evaluate their VALUE to the God of the universe… for
instance, I want my kids to clean their rooms, but if they leave a toy on the
floor my love for them doesn’t diminish… at all!
·
Let me illustrate with a short story.
o
A few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, 2 people
came up and knocked on my door. It was early. We were eating breakfast and
still in our PJs.
o
Now, early in my walk with Jesus, I used to shoo
them away quickly and rudely. Lately, I’d just stopped answering the door.
o
But this time was different, I opened the door
with a smile… introduced myself… told them about my church… blessed them for
their visit… encouraged them in their adventure that day… we laughed, they
smiled… it was a pleasant 5 minute conversation.
o
I didn’t need anything from them… I may not have
agreed with them on some things, but that didn’t matter… what mattered was that
I trusted God (not me or them) with the conversation I was entering into. Later,
the Lord spoke to me and encouraged me that I might be the only person all day
who was kind to his 2 daughters.
o I walked away thinking…
§
this is grace, this is freedom from the lie, this
is the Cure
Imagine if we could
walk in trust in every situation…
·
Trusting
that the Father is who he says HE IS.
·
Trusting
the Father in those who are following Him.
·
Trusting
the Father so much that grace covers even our difficult relationships.
·
That
would be freedom. That would be life on the “playground” and not under a
microscope!
Offering
·
Invite ushers forward
·
Remind that God loves it when we give cheerfully
·
Remind all offerings go to support vision during 2 years.
·
Prayer
Communion
·
Part of our worship today.
·
Invited to commune with Jesus through the cross.
·
Remind them of Hebrews 10 passage.
·
Communion is thankfulness – body/blood.
·
Dismiss to your right
o A-K come
forward
o L-S go to the back
of the auditorium.
·
After all the elements are received, we will pray and
take them together.
·
Worship then ministry.
MINISTRY IDEAS
·
Grace for trusting God for the first time.
·
Freedom to trust God more fully in our relationships.
·
Freedom from past hurts from others… realizing the cross
proclaims your value to the world.
·
Freedom to enjoy relationships with others (again).
CLOSING Announcement Urbana – Newcomer
Lunch
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