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
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
BREAKTHROUGH of HOPE - December 30, 2012
Open
Review
·
2012 was a year greater than I had hoped for…
o We
saw some great stuff happen in my family’s life and in the church.
o We
had 3 powerful conferences with fresh revelation.
o That
revelation expanded our hope through the themes of the cross, our new life in
Christ, grace and our revival of righteousness.
o Crescendo
has left us hopeful that everything will get bigger & better.
o We
hope all of this has left each of us with significant “breakthroughs” in our
lives!
·
During the Breakthrough series…
o We
started with a ratcheting up of our expectation thru this season.
o This
then leads to breakthroughs in faith, generosity, love and joy!
·
Today, we want to talk about a breakthrough of the hope we are already experiencing!
o How
did hope breakthrough IN US with the birth of Christ?
o And
how does hope break THROUGH US every day?
Prayer & Welcome
Set
up the clip from Shawshank Redemption
I
want to start this morning with a short movie clip. The main character (Andy)
gets in trouble for playing music (a Mozart record) over the loud speakers of
Shawshank prison. After 2 weeks in solitary confinement, Andy (Tim Robbins’
character) is meeting with his friends for lunch. During their conversation,
Andy is trying to explain the emotions of his prison sentence to Red (Morgan
Freeman) who has been in prison now since he was a teenager. Needless to say,
they view life from 2 very different perspectives…
·
Tim Robbins (Andy): I had Mr. Mozart to keep me company… it was
in here (mind) and in here (heart)… that’s the beauty of music, they can’t get
that from you… haven’t you ever felt that way about music?!
·
Morgan Freeman (Red): I played a mean harmonica as a younger man…
lost interest in it though… didn’t make much sense in here.
·
Andy: Here’s where it makes the most sense? You need it so you don’t forget.
·
Red: Forget?
·
Andy: Forget that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of
stone. That there’s something inside that they can’t get to… that they can’t
touch… that’s yours.
·
Red: What are you talking about?
·
Andy: Hope.
·
Red: Hope… Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing.
Hope can drive a man insane. It’s got no use on the inside. You’d better get
used to that idea.
Set
up the dilemma:
·
Hope is a dangerous thing because it’s a scary
thing.
·
Personalize it in my life…
o Never
more real than after my first semester at LCCollege.
§ Lonely
- Put more excitement in the community than Christ.
§ Excitement
of new birth was wearing out and questions came.
§ Had
to search to find David’s (Psalmist heart) mindset.
o It
takes a tremendous amount of trust in God to hope in something…
·
Maybe in your life (or your family’s) the hopes
you’ve had have been dashed to pieces.
·
Maybe it’s hard to think of something you can
hope in that won’t disappoint you… as sometimes jobs, futures, relationships,
dreams have in some way fallen short of what we’ve expected.
·
Maybe the world around us, filled with tragedy,
has left us bitter towards hope… and in fact we are hopeless.
·
We find ourselves as Morgan Freeman’s (Red)
character did…
o Jaded
toward hope.
o Not
understanding it.
o Telling
ourselves that life “is at it is” and there’s no hope for change.
o Or
even worse, lying to ourselves that hope has no place in our present situation…
that the only point for hope is in the next life and there’s not hope for
today.
·
We find ourselves as Red did: “used to” our prison.
Today,
we want to see hope
breakthrough in your hearts. For us to understand…
·
That hope has come to earth.
·
That hope is an important part of who we are.
·
And even more, that hope’s home is in YOU!
Body
I
think that most of us want to start out the new year hopeful. For me…
·
I am hopeful that our family will be healthy.
·
I am hopeful that we will be provided for.
·
I am hopeful that we will stop eating ice cream
and lose a few pounds.
·
I am hopeful that we will read more books and
watch TV less.
·
I am hopeful that God will finally move my hair
from my chin to the top of my head.
·
New year’s resolutions are all about hope that
life will be different this year.
In
the church, I get hopeful for the new year.
·
I hope that our plans & programs will honor
God.
·
I hope that our church family will grow closer
together.
·
I hope that lives will be changed.
·
I hope that Holy Spirit will show up in
everything we do.
But I don’t have to wait for hope!
…He already came in the person of Jesus Christ.
When
Jesus came to earth as an infant man, He changed everything.
·
1
Timothy 1:1 – Jesus Christ is our hope!
·
He became Hope. He became the hope of the world.
·
For 100s of years, the world was watching and
waiting for the messiah to come… to change darkness to light… to change bondage
into freedom.
·
In the person of Jesus, that embodiment of hope
was realized.
·
Hope is a dangerous thing because of
Jesus’ breakthrough into humanity… not because of the breakthrough of political
freedom, but Jesus’ breakthrough was
o dangerous
to the darkness
o dangerous
to the devil’s schemes
o dangerous
because light always conquers
·
AND now people can have the hope to experience
breakthrough in their own lives.
Colossians
1:27 “To them (His people)
God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the
glory of this mystery, which is Christ
in you, the hope of glory.”
Christ
living in us is the “hope of glory.”
·
Christ in us brings us hope.
·
It’s not dependent on us to work something up.
·
It’s born out of intimacy of Jesus with us. It’s
born out of an understanding that Jesus doesn’t just live near us, but INSIDE
us… empowering us to a new life, a new identity as a righteous son/daughter of
God.
·
And is this Hope for glory beyond this life in
heaven?
·
Yes, I think it could be that, but I think it’s
sooooo much more.
·
It’s about the glory that we get to walk in
every day of our lives as we partner with the King of Glory.
We,
as a Vineyard, have labeled ourselves a community of hope.
·
Does that mean we are a community that it just
riding out our last days until the glory of the Lord returns and we all get to
go to heaven?
·
That kind of end times thinking will not endear
us to our cities.
·
That kind of thinking would make spearheading a
new ministry, starting a multisite, planting a church or sending missionaries
pretty pointless.
No, we are to create Hope within each
and every community where the Lord sends us on mission… We are to be the
hope of that community.
·
So, when I hear that Christ living in us is “the
hope of glory,” I begin to ask what does that glory look like in our present
day lives.
2
Corinthians 3:7-12 “Now if
the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not
gaze at Moses' face because of its glory,
which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have
even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far
exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if
what was being brought to an end came with glory,
much more will what is permanent have glory.
Since we have such a hope, we are very bold.”
Christ
in you is the “hope of glory.”
·
Not the glory of following a set of rules.
·
Not the glory of sacrifice and law.
·
This
glory is the reflection of God in us!
·
Glory that comes from ministry by the Spirit of
God.
·
Glory that comes from understanding our identity
in Christ.
·
Glory that comes through the ministry of
righteousness.
·
Glory that comes because the Father has taken up
residence in us and wants to partner with us to accomplish his mission of hope
in our world!
·
There is a glory that comes when this revelation…
this new revelation of grace and righteousness that has been poured out on our
church (and around the world right now)… and that should breed hope in every
day of our lives.
·
God’s glory lives in you and me… wow!
Bible
So
practically, how does this “hope of glory” break through in our lives and make
us dangerous to the darkness?
·
How do you and I begin to understand and grasp
what God’s hope has done to transform us?
·
What does the hope of glory interaction within
us look like?
Hope breaks IN our heart with the
Father’s heart.
· Romans
5:5 “and hope does not
disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
· God replaces our hearts of stone
with a new heart.
·
He dwells within us and helps us to see
ourselves as he does.
·
He helps us to see others as he sees them.
·
The Father’s heart is one of hope for
reconciliation and change in every human being and that stirs up hopefulness
with us.
·
Ethne
and Corrie’s story at Family Dollar
Hope breaks IN with power.
·
Romans 15 “so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound
in hope.”
·
When the minister of hope (Holy Spirit)
interacts with our lives, we have the power to produce His fruit in our
lives.
·
If we live our lives full of joy and peace…
knowing who’s we are and finding our identity in Him… then the world cannot
touch the hope that we have. We have power to lives full and untouched.
·
Holy Spirit empowers us to live a life full of
power… full of understanding that we are the righteousness of God in Christ
Jesus.
·
We have power to extend God’s healing into every
persons life… to bring hope with us.
· Tell the story of the word of knowledge in Target.
Hope breaks IN and protects our
minds.
·
So, we need to take captive every thought and
make it obedient to Jesus.
·
When Todd White was here he talked about the
“gates of hell being right between our eyes.”
·
That our mind is the battlefield of the Kingdom.
·
1 Thessalonians 5:8 “…and for a helmet the hope
of salvation.”
·
If we live our lives understanding that we are
covered in the unmerited favor of God, then focusing of our hope of glory
becomes easier.
·
We protect our mind/thoughts with the hope of a
Savior… with knowing that we have been saved and are being saved… with knowing
that Christ’s death paved a way for him to live inside us.
·
Hope is our steadfast anchor (Hebrews 6) for our
thoughts.
Action
One
thing that Red (Morgan Freeman) said that I think is true is this:
·
Hope is a dangerous thing.
·
But not in the way he said it… Red was convinced
that holding onto something in “your prison” would always disappoint you.
·
But, we believe that hope is (as Andy said)
something inside that the world cannot touch.
·
Our hope is a person… our hope is unwavering…
our hope is Jesus Christ!
So,
for us, HOPE IS A DANGEROUS THING:
It
is because when we understand that Holy Spirit dwells within us and empowers us
to the “ministry of righteousness,” we are no longer afraid!
We
become dangerous to the darkness… we become dangerous to the orphan spirit… we
become dangerous to despair, grief, sickness, and more.
In
fact “since we have such a
hope, we are very bold!” (2Corinthians 3:12)
After
Jesus Christ (our hope) breaks IN, He then breaks THROUGH with boldness.
Boldness…
·
to share the hope that we have
·
to bring that hope to the community around us.
·
to release God’s glory into every situation.
·
to bring healing to those who despair.
·
Because we know we are partnering daily with the
King of the universe (who has taken up residence within us) to accomplish his
mission in our world.
·
Let me share one last story of bringing hope to
the hopeless…
o This
one wasn’t a one-time encounter like Family Dollar or Target
o Long
term relationship: Story of the lady at the coffee shop.
o She
had to lose hope for what I had to make sense to her.
o Healing
her mom.
The
hope of the world…
·
Is not in a manger.
·
Is not on a cross.
·
Is not some mysterious thing we can’t capture.
·
Is not so far away just waiting for us in
heaven.
·
The hope of the world lives in YOU.
So
go into 2013 and… Be the hope of the world!
Prayer & offering
MINISTRY TIME:
Empowered
to ministry.
Hopelessness
·
Job… future, relationships, boss.
·
Family… kids, spouse, other.
·
Finances
·
Adddictions
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