HOT TOPICS 2013, PART 3
Hush! Hush!
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
This past Sunday was part 3 of our Hot Topics series for 2013. We have one more Sunday to go, when we will welcome Dr. Andy Bannister speaking on the issue of faith and science. After that, we are jumping into 1 Corinthians, looking at the first four chapters. A series entitled Botox Church. I would encourage you to read and re-read the first four chapters in preparation for this series. In part 3 of our current series we looked at the issue of failure and specifically how Christ responded to the failure of the disciples when they all denied him.
Key texts: John 20: 18,19,20; 21:1-14; Luke 24:13-35
Big Idea: Our response to people experiencing failure can make the difference between overcoming or being overcome.
Before you jump into the main text answer the following questions:
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where failure was handled poorly?
Sometimes in the church we crucify those that fall. Once the news hit the street that you did...... you are a marked woman or man for life! Labeled, categorized, and shelved. The person who has fallen ends up avoiding that group, that church or that relationship because it seems like all they want to do is dagger you to death.
Other times we sweep it under the rug and say or do nothing, and let the person just carry on with a light slap on the wrist. We certainly have seen that scenario many times in the media. Spiritual leaders allowed to carry on in leadership as though nothing has happened, yet guilty of moral failure.
What is it about our makeup that can cause us to come down too hard or too soft?
Look at the text- John 20:19,20.
Note who is not there. See v.24. You might want to read the second group encounter (20:24-31) for context.
What was the dominant emotion in John 20:19,20?
What other words would you use to describe this scene?
How do you account for the fact that the writer does not mention that the disciples were afraid of Jesus? Note the fear they had of the Jews, but when Jesus appears it says that they were overjoyed.
Explanation: When I read this, I wondered why they might not be afraid of Jesus. You see the last time they saw Jesus as a group was when they denied him and left him to hang out to dry. They were all like a cat on a hot tin roof - gone! Now, Jesus appears… the one they betrayed, the one they walked away from stands before them. Is this their day of reckoning?
Ever miserably failed someone and then had to face them again? What was that like? What made the difference between being fearful to face that person vs. having humble confidence to go face to face?
My observations of this text and what happened previously, would suggest to me that they knew Jesus was not coming at them with a hammer to beat them to a pulp but with grace to help them overcome. Read John 20:18 and note that Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus before the group of disciples did. Read Luke 24 and note that the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and Peter (1 Cor 15:5) all saw Jesus before our scene in John 20:19,20. My hunch is that they knew Jesus wasn’t coming at them with a get-even kind of attitude but with grace, love and a heart to see them restored. Mary, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and Peter would have known and likely communicated that fact before they (the larger group) had encountered Jesus!
Jesus the head of the Church models a posture that enabled the disciples not to be overcome by their failure but to overcome their failure. We see this so dramatically demonstrated in the life of Peter. His failure, denial of Christ gets “special” mention in Scripture. But so does his restoration. Note in John 21 the BBQ Jesus prepares for the disciples. This is a powerful scene of healing, restoration and hope. Table fellowship indicated intimate relations among those who shared it. You ate with your friends, not with those you despised! Jesus is modeling for Peter (and the rest of the disciples) his desire for them to overcome, not to be overcome by their failure. Then we see Jesus reinstating Peter in front of the other disciples in John 21:15-19.
Jesus models several great principles of restoration in these narratives. Discuss and pray about these.
Jesus moves towards those that have failed. He gets in their space. He did this with Peter one-on-one, he did this with the larger group as well. Restoration and healing of those who have fallen, often is most powerfully experienced through loving relationship, not another 12-step program of recovery (even thought that certainly has its place).
Jesus spoke the language of love that made sense. He barbecued some fish and prepared some fresh bread. In that culture that was the language of love, of acceptance and friendship. As we seek to heal those in our midst we need to understand what language of love is most appropriate. We are all guilty of saying stupid, insensitive things to people going through tough times. What best communicates? Maybe words should be our final option.
He reinstates them. We see this in 20:22,23 and in John 21:15-19. In other words, people who fail can have hope that they can be used by God again. Peter rose up from the ashes of failure to become a key leader in the New Testament Church. The other disciples also rose up and fulfilled key roles.
As a church, let’s follow Christ’s lead in helping people overcome their failure, not be overcome by it!
Mark
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Touching Base! Part 195
HOT TOPICS 2013, PART 2
Freemasonry
Guest speaker, Kent Bandy
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
This Touching Base may help some who are currently involved in Freemasonry or want to learn more about this organization. Understand that it is Bethel’s desire that we live Biblically-measured lives, that we examine our hearts in light of God’s truth and live in a way that is consistent with God’s Word. The following are some questions and resources to reflect on this morning’s teaching.
Kent Bandy
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
FOR FURTHER READING
Books:
Harris, Jack. Freemasonry, The Invisible Cult. ISBN 978-0-88363-669-0
Gordon, Ian. The Craft and the Cross. ISBN 0-9528865-0-2
Online: (all websites were accessible as of 17 Jan 13)
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library
http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/
Help for the church:
http://www.christian-restoration.com/
Seminar:
Ellel Ministries International - Freemasonry: a Christian response.
http://www.ellelministries.org
Freemasonry
Guest speaker, Kent Bandy
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
This Touching Base may help some who are currently involved in Freemasonry or want to learn more about this organization. Understand that it is Bethel’s desire that we live Biblically-measured lives, that we examine our hearts in light of God’s truth and live in a way that is consistent with God’s Word. The following are some questions and resources to reflect on this morning’s teaching.
- How do we evaluate if an organization is in harmony with Christ and the message of the Gospel?
- Is social contribution enough to merit the church’s endorsement?
- In light of our track record of responses, how should we, as the church, respond?
- How does loving our neighbor play out in a God-honoring way?
- What’s the Lord saying to you personally through this conversation about Freemasonry?
Kent Bandy
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
FOR FURTHER READING
Books:
Harris, Jack. Freemasonry, The Invisible Cult. ISBN 978-0-88363-669-0
Gordon, Ian. The Craft and the Cross. ISBN 0-9528865-0-2
Online: (all websites were accessible as of 17 Jan 13)
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library
http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/
Help for the church:
http://www.christian-restoration.com/
Seminar:
Ellel Ministries International - Freemasonry: a Christian response.
http://www.ellelministries.org
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Touching Base! Part 194
HOT TOPICS 2013, PART 1
Church Roadkill
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
BIG IDEA: The Church Is God’s Ideal
This morning we began our 5th year of Hot Topics. By “hot” we mean issues that lie just beneath the surface and which no one wants to talk about, or issues that no one is addressing because the church has blindly embraced the heresy or the cultural norm and speaking up could be seen as controversial.
This morning’s topic referred to people who have had a negative encounter with the church and now essentially say, “I love Jesus but I hate the church!” These days “spirituality” is hot; organized religion is not. Community is hip, but the church is lame.
Q. Let’s start off with a “fill-in-the-blank” exercise. See if either you or someone you know could fill in the blanks with terms that are negative.
“The institutional church is so…” / “When I go to church I feel completely…” / “The leadership is totally…” /
“The people are…” / “The services are…” / “The music is…” / “The whole congregation is…” / “The whole thing makes me …”
If this doesn’t express where you are at, do you know anyone who could wax eloquent with the blanks?
Our aim is mostly to help believers who are sour, turned off, and disengaged. This is not necessarily a message to new believers or non-believers but for believers, and also to help equip Christ followers as you help others overcome personal pain in this area.
1. HOW DID THE CHURCH GET HERE?
- HURT AND HYPOCRISY
We see the church acting hatefully or neglecting the world at her doorstep and even we believers cringe! Others of us have probably been hurt by the church, through action or inaction, and it feels worse to be hurt by a “brother or sister”, doesn’t it? We expect more from our church community. Others have experienced church as a weapon used to discipline them as children – they may even have grown up thinking that their parents loved the church more than them. Finally, others of us have felt taken advantage of for our skills and talents. We are used up and burned out.
And yet, Paul’s letter to the Galatians describes the purpose of our freedom in Christ: NOT to satisfy our own sinful nature but to serve one another in love. It’s so interesting that Paul seems to suggest that the opposite of our sinful nature is serving one another in love. We often forget this freedom we have in Christ, and when it happens, we tend to look for identity in other places or in other people, and to look for faults in ourselves and in other believers, as a reflection of our own areas of brokenness. When that happens we are unable to serve others in our family of believers.
Q. Can you relate to any of the above? Have you ever been in such a church?
- MEDIA AND RELEVANCE
Movies, television and literature have all had their effect. Some examples given were of a James Bond movie that shows a chapel as a broken-down relic, TV shows that make Christians seem namby-pamby or worse still, attack any kind of values, and literature (for adults and children!) that attack God and the institutional church as “evil”.
Then, it’s even harder to help your friends understand the joy and comfort that can be found in church community when we live in an age where science HAS BECOME God. As was said in “Cosmos”, a popular 1980s documentary series, “[t]he Universe is all there is, all there has ever been and all there will ever be.” There is no God, and no need for God, because science can explain everything. In turn, this has made us very materialistic in our thinking: since all we are, is a cosmic accident, then eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die. Spiritual stuff? It’s all irrelevant nonsense. So who cares what the church has to say?
Add to all that the sad fact some churches HAVE become irrelevant by becoming tied to methods, not vision; by being afraid to “rock the boat” and risk losing a congregation; by daring to stand up for truth in a world which denies that there is any truth at all, and it’s easy to see why people check out.
Q. What examples of this have you noticed in your own excursions through various media? Has relevance ever been a problem in any church you’ve attended?
2. SO WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THE CHURCH?
- Defining terms
So what do you think this “ekklesia” of people who are committed to the rule and reign of God does? They are about the business of the kingdom, looking to Jesus who lived out the ethos of this Kingdom with absolute perfection, a group of people who are passionate about God’s kingdom purposes!
Note that the New Testament letters are most often addressed to churches (“ekklesia”), where Christ followers were gathered (see Rom. 16, Cor. and Gal.): in houses, courtyards, Solomon’s Portico, lecture halls, and even in caves.
But note what Paul never says to them: he never said “oh, and by the way also say hi to Bob, Mary, Rebecca, John, Sammy and Kirk, who I know are really into Jesus but hate the church.” That is simply not Kingdom talk.
To say that you were a Christ follower but were not part of a church would have been akin to saying “I am a hockey player”, but when asked what team (“ekklesia” of players) you’re with, you say you don’t actually play on a team (“Well, I played once, but they were all hypocrites.”) Churchless Christians are as counter to the biblical pattern and as “non-sensical” as a “teamless hockey player”.
So the kingdom is the work, rule and reign of God. The church is the coming together of people who love the Kingdom and the King and are working it out in meaningful community. It is God’s ideal, His design.
What should the healthy functioning body of Christ look like? This is an important question because the Church has not always been healthy.
- Acts 2 … What God the Holy Spirit made the Church to be!
The end of the second chapter of book of Acts gives us a beautiful illustration of what the church, the bride of Christ, is to be. It was a four-fold place, summed up in verse 42: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
This church was simply:
The other thing to note is that all of this took place at first, in part, in the temple in Jerusalem (v.46). Secret meetings in houses only came with persecution (NOTE: but they DID keep meeting! See Heb. 10:25).
And then it spilled out from the temple into peoples’ homes and daily lives: they had “all things together”, possessions and property being readily shared as needed, in a spirit of joy (because Christ was the focus, not themselves!) such that they could praise God and have “favour with all people” (this would have included non-Christians).
Do you see what the Holy Spirit did here in this early community? “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common…” As well, Paul preached on it over and over again in his letters to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:17), the Galatians (5:13) the Philippians (1:27), and the Ephesians (4:1-5).
One word: UNITY. These believers were together, and they were as one. And because of it, “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
In sum: Christ died for them, God called them, the Holy Spirit transformed them and everyone else just wanted to be with them and be one of them. No seeker-sensitive programs necessary here!
These 4 simple principles turned the entire Roman Empire upside down within a couple of hundred years!
- Christ, the Cornerstone
We are a building (1 Cor. 3:10-11) with a foundation in Christ. We are carefully joined together in him. It’s not too hard to imagine what happens to a building with a poor foundation. In Eph. 2:20-21 we see that together we are His house, built on the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the cornerstone, a pretty important construction piece since all the other stones are set in reference to it. The truer your foundation, the better the building will be. See also Eph. 4:14-16.
Read 1 Cor. 12: 12-13. What was done to us? We were baptized. By Who? The Holy Spirit. Into what? Into one body; Whose? Christ’s. What does this imply? Responsibility - we are part of something that has incredible diversity.
This is one of the reasons why we celebrate diversity in the body – Bethel is not a university church, a young couples’ church or an old person’s church – we are a city church, meaning we embrace all the diversity that that word implies.
So with such beautiful diversity there may still be conflict. However Ephesians spells out to us that the cornerstone has broken the hostility that exists between us (Eph. 2:14-16) and we can be members of one family (Eph. 2:19-22), and we are to make allowances for one another’s faults (Eph. 4:3).
We canʼt be this body or structure on our own. Living in isolation, without our family of believers, is not what God intended. Paul urges believers to live in UNITY, allowing our roots to grow deeply into Christ, our lives to be built on his foundation (Col 2:6-7). We are to work together with one mind and purpose, selfless, humble and putting others first (Phil. 2).
3. TAKEAWAYS
There certainly are Christ followers who are roadkill. They could easily fill in the blanks with valid reasons - hurt, hypocrisy, media, and relevance. Yet Christ’s ideal is still the Church – the expression of the Kingdom of God on earth - there actually is an ideal we strive towards and a Cornerstone we build on. So what should we do?
• Repent:
• Recalibrate: what would Kingston and the world see in the body of believers if we lived in the freedom that Christ offers us and if we saw the beauty he sees when he looks at his Bride…? What if we lived in the freedom to put off satisfying ourselves and choosing instead to serve one another in love?
God has put huge potential in all of us. If we are unified, rooted in Christ, with a common purpose, valuing and celebrating our diversity, what could happen?
Mark Kotchapaw – markkotchapaw@gmail.com
Carmen Gauvin-O’Donnell – betheladmin@cogeco.ca
Meredith MacKenzie – mackenzie613@gmail.com
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
FOR FURTHER READING
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community. 1954: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. 128 pp. ISBN 978-0060608521. Pastor Bonhoeffer's experience of Christian community in an underground seminary during the Nazi years reads like one of Paul's letters. It gives practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups.
DeYoung, Kevin with Ted Kluck. Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion. 2009: Moody Publishing, 224 pp. ISBN 978-0802458377. A great book written in response to the spate of “Get-out-of-the-Institutional-Church” books written a few years ago.
DeYoung, Kevin, Editor. Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day. 2011: Crossway Books, 256 pp. ISBN 978-1433521690. This book introduces young, new, and under-discipled Christians to the most essential and basic issues of faith in general and of evangelicalism in particular.
Kimball, Dan. They Like Jesus But Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. 2007: Zondervan Carr Books, 208 pp. ISBN 978-0310245902. An interesting look at reasons offered by both believers and non-believers alike for disliking the Church and how to deal with the issue.
Ortberg, John. Who is This Man? The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus. 2012: Zondervan Books, 208 pp. ISBN 978-0310275954. Ortberg reveals how Jesus has impacted civilization and individual human hearts.
Church Roadkill
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
BIG IDEA: The Church Is God’s Ideal
This morning we began our 5th year of Hot Topics. By “hot” we mean issues that lie just beneath the surface and which no one wants to talk about, or issues that no one is addressing because the church has blindly embraced the heresy or the cultural norm and speaking up could be seen as controversial.
This morning’s topic referred to people who have had a negative encounter with the church and now essentially say, “I love Jesus but I hate the church!” These days “spirituality” is hot; organized religion is not. Community is hip, but the church is lame.
Q. Let’s start off with a “fill-in-the-blank” exercise. See if either you or someone you know could fill in the blanks with terms that are negative.
“The institutional church is so…” / “When I go to church I feel completely…” / “The leadership is totally…” /
“The people are…” / “The services are…” / “The music is…” / “The whole congregation is…” / “The whole thing makes me …”
If this doesn’t express where you are at, do you know anyone who could wax eloquent with the blanks?
Our aim is mostly to help believers who are sour, turned off, and disengaged. This is not necessarily a message to new believers or non-believers but for believers, and also to help equip Christ followers as you help others overcome personal pain in this area.
1. HOW DID THE CHURCH GET HERE?
- HURT AND HYPOCRISY
We see the church acting hatefully or neglecting the world at her doorstep and even we believers cringe! Others of us have probably been hurt by the church, through action or inaction, and it feels worse to be hurt by a “brother or sister”, doesn’t it? We expect more from our church community. Others have experienced church as a weapon used to discipline them as children – they may even have grown up thinking that their parents loved the church more than them. Finally, others of us have felt taken advantage of for our skills and talents. We are used up and burned out.
And yet, Paul’s letter to the Galatians describes the purpose of our freedom in Christ: NOT to satisfy our own sinful nature but to serve one another in love. It’s so interesting that Paul seems to suggest that the opposite of our sinful nature is serving one another in love. We often forget this freedom we have in Christ, and when it happens, we tend to look for identity in other places or in other people, and to look for faults in ourselves and in other believers, as a reflection of our own areas of brokenness. When that happens we are unable to serve others in our family of believers.
Q. Can you relate to any of the above? Have you ever been in such a church?
- MEDIA AND RELEVANCE
Movies, television and literature have all had their effect. Some examples given were of a James Bond movie that shows a chapel as a broken-down relic, TV shows that make Christians seem namby-pamby or worse still, attack any kind of values, and literature (for adults and children!) that attack God and the institutional church as “evil”.
Then, it’s even harder to help your friends understand the joy and comfort that can be found in church community when we live in an age where science HAS BECOME God. As was said in “Cosmos”, a popular 1980s documentary series, “[t]he Universe is all there is, all there has ever been and all there will ever be.” There is no God, and no need for God, because science can explain everything. In turn, this has made us very materialistic in our thinking: since all we are, is a cosmic accident, then eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die. Spiritual stuff? It’s all irrelevant nonsense. So who cares what the church has to say?
Add to all that the sad fact some churches HAVE become irrelevant by becoming tied to methods, not vision; by being afraid to “rock the boat” and risk losing a congregation; by daring to stand up for truth in a world which denies that there is any truth at all, and it’s easy to see why people check out.
Q. What examples of this have you noticed in your own excursions through various media? Has relevance ever been a problem in any church you’ve attended?
2. SO WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THE CHURCH?
- Defining terms
- “Kingdom” - It is best defined as the rule of God. The kingdom of God is present wherever God is reigning. It was best seen when Jesus was here in person, when He walked the face of the earth. Doesn’t something rise up within you and hunger and thirst for God’s Kingdom when you read of the life of Christ? Goodness, order, hope and truth colliding with the mess of earthly empires, broken systems, and injustices. AND it can be present now, even imperfectly, both wherever the Lord Jesus Christ is acknowledged as Lord (because we become carriers of the DNA of this Kingdom) and wherever God is working.
- Church - (gr. “ekklesia”, pr. Ek-la-SEE-a), which means ‘those who are called out’, not necessarily called out of the world, but called out of society for some particular function or purpose; they are ‘called together’. It can even refer to any group of people that gather together for any kind of purpose - an “ekklesia” of people who collect stamps, an “ekklesia” of people getting together to study or run together - a group of people.
So what do you think this “ekklesia” of people who are committed to the rule and reign of God does? They are about the business of the kingdom, looking to Jesus who lived out the ethos of this Kingdom with absolute perfection, a group of people who are passionate about God’s kingdom purposes!
Note that the New Testament letters are most often addressed to churches (“ekklesia”), where Christ followers were gathered (see Rom. 16, Cor. and Gal.): in houses, courtyards, Solomon’s Portico, lecture halls, and even in caves.
But note what Paul never says to them: he never said “oh, and by the way also say hi to Bob, Mary, Rebecca, John, Sammy and Kirk, who I know are really into Jesus but hate the church.” That is simply not Kingdom talk.
To say that you were a Christ follower but were not part of a church would have been akin to saying “I am a hockey player”, but when asked what team (“ekklesia” of players) you’re with, you say you don’t actually play on a team (“Well, I played once, but they were all hypocrites.”) Churchless Christians are as counter to the biblical pattern and as “non-sensical” as a “teamless hockey player”.
So the kingdom is the work, rule and reign of God. The church is the coming together of people who love the Kingdom and the King and are working it out in meaningful community. It is God’s ideal, His design.
What should the healthy functioning body of Christ look like? This is an important question because the Church has not always been healthy.
- Acts 2 … What God the Holy Spirit made the Church to be!
The end of the second chapter of book of Acts gives us a beautiful illustration of what the church, the bride of Christ, is to be. It was a four-fold place, summed up in verse 42: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
This church was simply:
- A place of continual doctrinal purity and learning (“the apostles’ teaching”)
- A place of fellowship (gr. “koinonia”, pr. coy-no-NEE-a). We are not meant to be alone, and the Early Church understood this right away.
- A place of breaking of bread (both through communion, as per Jesus’ commandment, and through meals and time together (v.46))
- A place of prayer (that’s one of the reasons we’d love you to come out and “Move” with us during the Lenten season!)
The other thing to note is that all of this took place at first, in part, in the temple in Jerusalem (v.46). Secret meetings in houses only came with persecution (NOTE: but they DID keep meeting! See Heb. 10:25).
And then it spilled out from the temple into peoples’ homes and daily lives: they had “all things together”, possessions and property being readily shared as needed, in a spirit of joy (because Christ was the focus, not themselves!) such that they could praise God and have “favour with all people” (this would have included non-Christians).
Do you see what the Holy Spirit did here in this early community? “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common…” As well, Paul preached on it over and over again in his letters to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:17), the Galatians (5:13) the Philippians (1:27), and the Ephesians (4:1-5).
One word: UNITY. These believers were together, and they were as one. And because of it, “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
In sum: Christ died for them, God called them, the Holy Spirit transformed them and everyone else just wanted to be with them and be one of them. No seeker-sensitive programs necessary here!
These 4 simple principles turned the entire Roman Empire upside down within a couple of hundred years!
- Christ, the Cornerstone
We are a building (1 Cor. 3:10-11) with a foundation in Christ. We are carefully joined together in him. It’s not too hard to imagine what happens to a building with a poor foundation. In Eph. 2:20-21 we see that together we are His house, built on the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the cornerstone, a pretty important construction piece since all the other stones are set in reference to it. The truer your foundation, the better the building will be. See also Eph. 4:14-16.
Read 1 Cor. 12: 12-13. What was done to us? We were baptized. By Who? The Holy Spirit. Into what? Into one body; Whose? Christ’s. What does this imply? Responsibility - we are part of something that has incredible diversity.
This is one of the reasons why we celebrate diversity in the body – Bethel is not a university church, a young couples’ church or an old person’s church – we are a city church, meaning we embrace all the diversity that that word implies.
So with such beautiful diversity there may still be conflict. However Ephesians spells out to us that the cornerstone has broken the hostility that exists between us (Eph. 2:14-16) and we can be members of one family (Eph. 2:19-22), and we are to make allowances for one another’s faults (Eph. 4:3).
We canʼt be this body or structure on our own. Living in isolation, without our family of believers, is not what God intended. Paul urges believers to live in UNITY, allowing our roots to grow deeply into Christ, our lives to be built on his foundation (Col 2:6-7). We are to work together with one mind and purpose, selfless, humble and putting others first (Phil. 2).
3. TAKEAWAYS
There certainly are Christ followers who are roadkill. They could easily fill in the blanks with valid reasons - hurt, hypocrisy, media, and relevance. Yet Christ’s ideal is still the Church – the expression of the Kingdom of God on earth - there actually is an ideal we strive towards and a Cornerstone we build on. So what should we do?
• Repent:
- Individually – Repent, not for being roadkill, but for turning it into your new identity. Certainly we are not saying that what was done is inconsequential or unimportant, but to allow that situation to shape us is wrong and grieves the very God who lives in us by His Holy Spirit. And it hurts the Body - either because we pull away or because we leak out toxic, jaded attitudes and comments (Heb. 12:5). Deal with it, and let us help you deal with it.
- Leaders – need, at times, to repent of what has been allowed to go on - harming the bride
- Christ followers – we may need to repent of an unforgiving heart
• Recalibrate: what would Kingston and the world see in the body of believers if we lived in the freedom that Christ offers us and if we saw the beauty he sees when he looks at his Bride…? What if we lived in the freedom to put off satisfying ourselves and choosing instead to serve one another in love?
God has put huge potential in all of us. If we are unified, rooted in Christ, with a common purpose, valuing and celebrating our diversity, what could happen?
Mark Kotchapaw – markkotchapaw@gmail.com
Carmen Gauvin-O’Donnell – betheladmin@cogeco.ca
Meredith MacKenzie – mackenzie613@gmail.com
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
FOR FURTHER READING
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community. 1954: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. 128 pp. ISBN 978-0060608521. Pastor Bonhoeffer's experience of Christian community in an underground seminary during the Nazi years reads like one of Paul's letters. It gives practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups.
DeYoung, Kevin with Ted Kluck. Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion. 2009: Moody Publishing, 224 pp. ISBN 978-0802458377. A great book written in response to the spate of “Get-out-of-the-Institutional-Church” books written a few years ago.
DeYoung, Kevin, Editor. Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day. 2011: Crossway Books, 256 pp. ISBN 978-1433521690. This book introduces young, new, and under-discipled Christians to the most essential and basic issues of faith in general and of evangelicalism in particular.
Kimball, Dan. They Like Jesus But Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. 2007: Zondervan Carr Books, 208 pp. ISBN 978-0310245902. An interesting look at reasons offered by both believers and non-believers alike for disliking the Church and how to deal with the issue.
Ortberg, John. Who is This Man? The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus. 2012: Zondervan Books, 208 pp. ISBN 978-0310275954. Ortberg reveals how Jesus has impacted civilization and individual human hearts.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Touching Base! Part 193
From Here to There
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
This past Sunday I talked about where we are at as a church. It’s important that people who come to Bethel don’t just “come and go”, but come and grow, and come and know what is going on, what we are all about, how we’re doing and the opportunities we’re facing. Simply attending, being oblivious to who we are and how we are engaging with the vision is simply a violation of what it means to be part of the body of Christ. We want informed people, committed to the vision, contributing to the dialogue and engaging in the work of the local church. So here are four statements that may help you understand how we are doing, four statements that will help you explain to a complete stranger what Bethel is all about.
Married to the Vision, Dating the Methodology
Get this one wrong and you can quickly destroy a church or an organization. Far too many churches have married the methodology and thus died a slow death into irrelevancy.
Our vision statement is, “Responding to the Heart of God; Transforming the Heart of the City, the Nation, and the World.” It’s rooted in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. The vision answers the question, “where are we going?” and it’s not negotiable. How each individual church expresses it will be unique, and demographics as well as resources will impact the uniqueness of each gathered church, but the overall vision is the same.
However, methods will come and go, i.e. the tools that help a church carry out that vision. On Sunday I talked about how some methods could be compared to a train or a boat, a race car or an airplane. All four represent different means of transportation, getting from point a to point b. Likewise in the church, different ways of fulfilling, attaining the vision will come and go. For a season, a church may determine that the race car is the best way of pursuing the vision. But as seasons change, the race car might be traded in for a speed boat or a train. Methods come and go.
What happens when churches or organizations institutionalize a method?
What can happen to the vision?
What are some of the unhealthy reasons we hang on too long to methods and tools that have become outdated?
Mark Batterson has said....
“Unhealthy method” conversations often start like...
“This is the way we’ve always done it...”
“What might so-and-so think if we stop doing, or start doing or don’t use... anymore…?”
“So-and-so donated such-and-such and if we stop doing this or using this, so and so will be very upset that we don’t do or use such-and-such anymore…”
The example I used on Sunday of a change for Bethel in this area has to do with our yearly missions fundraising banquet entitled Bethel Bear Your Brother’s Burden Banquet. Got any examples of methods that once worked but are no longer as effective? Corporate examples might be interesting to consider at this point as well.
Falling Forward Moves Us Onward
Think about family and work. Did any of you grow up in a family where failure meant humiliation, embarrassment and ridicule? How about work? Ever worked in an environment where failure was villainized? What did that do to the morale of the office? How did that impact the employees’ willingness to step out and take risks?
Discuss the following quote. What does this say about failure?
What kind of culture do you think Jesus nurtured with His disciples? Read Matthew 18:10-14. Do you think that Jesus, when He finds the lost sheep, beats it or nurtures it? Then note the next passage v15-17. Note that the heart of the Good Shepherd is for restoration, healing, falling forward! The heart of God is for us to learn from mistakes and move onward, upward and forward. Know any other texts that illustrate this? This lines up with our value of Solidarity - being FOR people, being WITH people.
At Bethel we are committed to being a learning environment. Organizationally we are committed to keeping in step with the voice of the Spirit, stepping out and trying new things, all for the sake of the vision God has given us. As we step out we will stumble and fall, but we believe that the failure will make us wiser than if we had never tried.
On Sunday I used our third service and partnerships as two examples of stepping out, learning and falling forward. In both of these examples we are learning, growing, stumbling and advancing.
What has been your most profitable failure to date in life? How key was having a healthy organization, team or group of friends around you?
Facts are our Friends.
Not everyone believes this. One reason we ignore the facts is because facing the facts can mean having to do a lot of work. Think of the life and words of Jesus. Jesus stated the facts time and time again and called people to align their lives with the facts. When He confronted the Samaritan women at the well, the fact of her marital mess was something Jesus did not shy away from. Remember when Jesus listed the woes of the Pharisees? If they faced up with the woes, there would be a lot of work to do! How about in Matthew 7 where Jesus talks about judging? The fact of the plank in our own eye was calling the listener to deal with the tough stuff in his/her own heart first. Work to be done!
As a board of elders the key fact that we are working on at Bethel these days is discipleship. In our vision statement it says that we are to be a people responding to the heart of God. This is to be the posture of a disciple - listening, malleable, growing, changing, under authority, obeying. As a board we feel that we must do better in this area of helping people move from exploring Christ to being Christ-centered. Our business is not to help people stay where they are but challenge them to move on to where they need to be. This fact about our church, the fact that we need to do better, has shaped our board’s agenda and focus for the last several months and will shape and be a priority on our meeting agendas for the foreseeable future. We are reading, discussing, praying and moving towards working on outcomes, action steps and implementation. Work to be done!
What fact is shaping your life these days?
Prayerfully Engaged.
“The danger is that the longer a movement exists, the easier it can be to rely on past success or well-developed structures and to be less dependent on the radical intervention of a supernatural God.“
Hudson Taylor said “We are a supernatural people, born again by a supernatural birth, kept by a supernatural power, sustained on a supernatural food, taught by a supernatural Teacher from a supernatural Book, and led by a supernatural Captain in right paths to assured victories.”
Prayer is a posture of the heart (corporate and individual) that reminds us that what we do is dependent on what God does in and through us.
On Sunday we introduced Move, a prayer initiative that will start on February 10th and take us right up to Easter. We want to invite you to participate in this prayer focus as we seek God to work among us and through us as we bless city, nation and world.
Take some time to pray about what has been discussed. Feel free to come and talk to me about any of the points mentioned. As we often say, dialogue helps bring clarity.
Mark Kotchapaw
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
This past Sunday I talked about where we are at as a church. It’s important that people who come to Bethel don’t just “come and go”, but come and grow, and come and know what is going on, what we are all about, how we’re doing and the opportunities we’re facing. Simply attending, being oblivious to who we are and how we are engaging with the vision is simply a violation of what it means to be part of the body of Christ. We want informed people, committed to the vision, contributing to the dialogue and engaging in the work of the local church. So here are four statements that may help you understand how we are doing, four statements that will help you explain to a complete stranger what Bethel is all about.
Married to the Vision, Dating the Methodology
Get this one wrong and you can quickly destroy a church or an organization. Far too many churches have married the methodology and thus died a slow death into irrelevancy.
Our vision statement is, “Responding to the Heart of God; Transforming the Heart of the City, the Nation, and the World.” It’s rooted in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. The vision answers the question, “where are we going?” and it’s not negotiable. How each individual church expresses it will be unique, and demographics as well as resources will impact the uniqueness of each gathered church, but the overall vision is the same.
However, methods will come and go, i.e. the tools that help a church carry out that vision. On Sunday I talked about how some methods could be compared to a train or a boat, a race car or an airplane. All four represent different means of transportation, getting from point a to point b. Likewise in the church, different ways of fulfilling, attaining the vision will come and go. For a season, a church may determine that the race car is the best way of pursuing the vision. But as seasons change, the race car might be traded in for a speed boat or a train. Methods come and go.
What happens when churches or organizations institutionalize a method?
What can happen to the vision?
What are some of the unhealthy reasons we hang on too long to methods and tools that have become outdated?
Mark Batterson has said....
- Somewhere along doing ministry we lose our (pray filled) imagination.
- We stop doing ministry out of imagination and begin doing it out of memory (methods that we have always embraced)
- We stop creating the future and begin repeating the past.
“Unhealthy method” conversations often start like...
“This is the way we’ve always done it...”
“What might so-and-so think if we stop doing, or start doing or don’t use... anymore…?”
“So-and-so donated such-and-such and if we stop doing this or using this, so and so will be very upset that we don’t do or use such-and-such anymore…”
The example I used on Sunday of a change for Bethel in this area has to do with our yearly missions fundraising banquet entitled Bethel Bear Your Brother’s Burden Banquet. Got any examples of methods that once worked but are no longer as effective? Corporate examples might be interesting to consider at this point as well.
Falling Forward Moves Us Onward
Think about family and work. Did any of you grow up in a family where failure meant humiliation, embarrassment and ridicule? How about work? Ever worked in an environment where failure was villainized? What did that do to the morale of the office? How did that impact the employees’ willingness to step out and take risks?
Discuss the following quote. What does this say about failure?
“The reason I’m doing the best work of my life right now is because
I have fifty years of mistakes telling me what to do.”
What kind of culture do you think Jesus nurtured with His disciples? Read Matthew 18:10-14. Do you think that Jesus, when He finds the lost sheep, beats it or nurtures it? Then note the next passage v15-17. Note that the heart of the Good Shepherd is for restoration, healing, falling forward! The heart of God is for us to learn from mistakes and move onward, upward and forward. Know any other texts that illustrate this? This lines up with our value of Solidarity - being FOR people, being WITH people.
At Bethel we are committed to being a learning environment. Organizationally we are committed to keeping in step with the voice of the Spirit, stepping out and trying new things, all for the sake of the vision God has given us. As we step out we will stumble and fall, but we believe that the failure will make us wiser than if we had never tried.
On Sunday I used our third service and partnerships as two examples of stepping out, learning and falling forward. In both of these examples we are learning, growing, stumbling and advancing.
What has been your most profitable failure to date in life? How key was having a healthy organization, team or group of friends around you?
Facts are our Friends.
Not everyone believes this. One reason we ignore the facts is because facing the facts can mean having to do a lot of work. Think of the life and words of Jesus. Jesus stated the facts time and time again and called people to align their lives with the facts. When He confronted the Samaritan women at the well, the fact of her marital mess was something Jesus did not shy away from. Remember when Jesus listed the woes of the Pharisees? If they faced up with the woes, there would be a lot of work to do! How about in Matthew 7 where Jesus talks about judging? The fact of the plank in our own eye was calling the listener to deal with the tough stuff in his/her own heart first. Work to be done!
As a board of elders the key fact that we are working on at Bethel these days is discipleship. In our vision statement it says that we are to be a people responding to the heart of God. This is to be the posture of a disciple - listening, malleable, growing, changing, under authority, obeying. As a board we feel that we must do better in this area of helping people move from exploring Christ to being Christ-centered. Our business is not to help people stay where they are but challenge them to move on to where they need to be. This fact about our church, the fact that we need to do better, has shaped our board’s agenda and focus for the last several months and will shape and be a priority on our meeting agendas for the foreseeable future. We are reading, discussing, praying and moving towards working on outcomes, action steps and implementation. Work to be done!
What fact is shaping your life these days?
Prayerfully Engaged.
“The danger is that the longer a movement exists, the easier it can be to rely on past success or well-developed structures and to be less dependent on the radical intervention of a supernatural God.“
Hudson Taylor said “We are a supernatural people, born again by a supernatural birth, kept by a supernatural power, sustained on a supernatural food, taught by a supernatural Teacher from a supernatural Book, and led by a supernatural Captain in right paths to assured victories.”
Prayer is a posture of the heart (corporate and individual) that reminds us that what we do is dependent on what God does in and through us.
On Sunday we introduced Move, a prayer initiative that will start on February 10th and take us right up to Easter. We want to invite you to participate in this prayer focus as we seek God to work among us and through us as we bless city, nation and world.
Take some time to pray about what has been discussed. Feel free to come and talk to me about any of the points mentioned. As we often say, dialogue helps bring clarity.
Mark Kotchapaw
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Touching Base! Part 192
All Time Is Not Equal
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
Here is an interesting exercise: take a piece of paper and draw a horizontal time line. Write on the left, birth, and at the end of the line, today. Now take a highlighter and mark on that line representing time, the most important dates, perhaps a season in your life.
By looking at your timeline you would no doubt agree with me that all time is not equal. There are seasons, dates that hold greater weight, and influence in our lives than others. Christmas reminds us that all time is not equal. Two thousand years ago there lived a man, the God Man, whose words, deeds and identity shape us and influence us still today. There is no other time period in all of human history that has so dramatically impacted how the rest of history would unfold:
What is interesting is that this time without equal, is not only looked back upon, but was looked forward to. Check out Luke 24:25-27, Matt 1:22,23,1 Peter 1:10-12. It’s like a centerpiece on a table, wherever you sit at the table you can see the centerpiece and its centrality to the table arrangement. Likewise, wherever you are in history, whether looking forward or back, this time is central, highlighted and of great influence.
Read Hebrews 1:1-4. Note the phrase, “in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son”.
Another great exercise is to take a Bible where the words of Jesus are in red letters. Read through and see what words of Christ you find most challenging. On Sunday I gave several examples.
Take some time and pray for each other. As we allow His life to shape us, and the Holy Spirit to control us, we need each other to remain strong, faithful and aligned.
All time is not equal. The life of Christ, His death and resurrection are the centerpiece to all of human history. His words are to shape us, for He may have come as a baby, but He is no longer our baby but our King, the Head of the Church, the First and the Last, Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God. As Paul said of Him (1 Tim 3:16), “Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.”
On Sunday we took some time to demonstrate how the words of Jesus shape us by updating people on the Bethel House Ministry. This ministry is a tangible example of how Jesus shapes us today. As a church, we are shaped by the life of Christ and thus feel compelled to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and to release the oppressed. The following is a bit about this all -important ministry at Bethel:
Mark Kotchapaw
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
Here is an interesting exercise: take a piece of paper and draw a horizontal time line. Write on the left, birth, and at the end of the line, today. Now take a highlighter and mark on that line representing time, the most important dates, perhaps a season in your life.
- What were those dates or seasons that stand out most?
- How did what happen back then shape you?
- Was it positive or negative?
- Who were the people in that memory?
By looking at your timeline you would no doubt agree with me that all time is not equal. There are seasons, dates that hold greater weight, and influence in our lives than others. Christmas reminds us that all time is not equal. Two thousand years ago there lived a man, the God Man, whose words, deeds and identity shape us and influence us still today. There is no other time period in all of human history that has so dramatically impacted how the rest of history would unfold:
“Jesus’ impact was greater 100 years after his death than during his life; it was greater still after five hundred years; after a thousand years his legacy laid the foundation for much of Europe; after two thousand years he has more followers in more places than ever. […] His influence has swept over history like the tail of a comet, bringing his inspiration to influence art, science, government, medicine, and education; he has taught humans about dignity, compassion, forgiveness, and hope.” John Ortberg, Who Is This Man (p.11-12).
What is interesting is that this time without equal, is not only looked back upon, but was looked forward to. Check out Luke 24:25-27, Matt 1:22,23,1 Peter 1:10-12. It’s like a centerpiece on a table, wherever you sit at the table you can see the centerpiece and its centrality to the table arrangement. Likewise, wherever you are in history, whether looking forward or back, this time is central, highlighted and of great influence.
Read Hebrews 1:1-4. Note the phrase, “in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son”.
- What are the words of Jesus that have deeply shaped you?
- How have those words made you to be a completely different person than if you had ignored them and allowed other words to shape you?
- What current challenges are you facing that are really the result of heeding the words of Jesus?
- What do you find are the hardest words of Jesus to heed?
Another great exercise is to take a Bible where the words of Jesus are in red letters. Read through and see what words of Christ you find most challenging. On Sunday I gave several examples.
Take some time and pray for each other. As we allow His life to shape us, and the Holy Spirit to control us, we need each other to remain strong, faithful and aligned.
All time is not equal. The life of Christ, His death and resurrection are the centerpiece to all of human history. His words are to shape us, for He may have come as a baby, but He is no longer our baby but our King, the Head of the Church, the First and the Last, Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God. As Paul said of Him (1 Tim 3:16), “Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.”
On Sunday we took some time to demonstrate how the words of Jesus shape us by updating people on the Bethel House Ministry. This ministry is a tangible example of how Jesus shapes us today. As a church, we are shaped by the life of Christ and thus feel compelled to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and to release the oppressed. The following is a bit about this all -important ministry at Bethel:
Bethel House is a ministry of Bethel Church that provides safe, supportive, transitional housing for men recovering from alcohol and/or drug addiction. Having successfully completed an 8–12 week live-in treatment program at Salvation Army Harbour Light in Kingston, Ontario, men wishing to remain in Kingston have the option of moving into one of two houses located next to the church at 318 and 324 Johnson Street and corporately called “Bethel House.”
This is because, unfortunately, even those who have successfully completed a recovery program are often forced back into old lifestyle patterns because of a lack of safe, affordable, transitional housing - when leaving a treatment or recovery program, many people actually require an additional stabilizing step in their recovery process before fully transitioning back into the community. This is normally a period of 8-12 months. Thus, this ministry has grown out of a desperate need in our community which has been documented in numerous poverty, healthcare and social service studies over the last few years.
During the summers of 2006 and 2007, both houses owned by Bethel Church were renovated as the congregation supported a decision to move from student housing to a more ministry-focused need in our community. Many people from Bethel Church, the greater community and the staff at Harbour Light assisted in this major undertaking, and continue to support this ministry today through prayer, practical donations such as bedding, clothing for our men, televisions, furniture, food (muffins and cookies are always appreciated) and even fund-raisers and financial gifts. Financial gifts have been used for tutoring our guys returning to school, special needs relevant to individual residents and matters related to the ongoing operations and maintenance of the houses.
Over the years, our guys’ stories of struggle and success have encouraged many of us in our own challenges and faith walk, as they have helped us to better understand the world of mental health and addictions. And your ongoing support and engagement of our guys lightens their step each day.
So far, this ministry has seen approximately 70 men pass through our doors in the last five years, the majority of whom have successfully reintegrated back into the community either in Kingston or elsewhere.
Bethel House would not be possible without the ongoing prayer and financial support of our church and community. The Bethel House Committee, comprised of leadership from both Bethel Church and the Salvation Army Harbour Light Program, covets your prayers for us as we meet regularly to pray and plan for this ministry. As well, we encourage you to become involved in this ministry, first and foremost, by reaching out to our men and encouraging them in their recovery journey. You will find, as we have found, that the blessing of knowing ‘our guys’ is mutual.
If you are interested in knowing more about the Bethel House Ministry or how you can be a part of this work, please feel free to contact Sandy Sheahan (Ministry Chair) at 613 540-0518 or sheahan@queensu.ca
Sandy Sheahan (on behalf of the Bethel House Ministry Team)
Mark Kotchapaw
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
Monday, December 10, 2012
Touching Base! Part 191
Jeremiah was a bullfrog? - Part 9
The Mute Stones Speak
Guest posting by Eric Prost
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
Read Jeremiah 23:5-6 and 33:12-16; Lamentations 2:8; Luke 19:37-40.
If the walls in your house could talk, what would they say? What if your walls could gossip? What is said when it’s just your family at home? How do you spend your time when you’re home alone?
What if the walls in the Oval Office could talk? Would they recite statistics and reasoned arguments? Would they praise the chief executives who have sat behind that desk? Or would they lament the dead in wars executed from that room or weep for the injustices of rich and poor?
If the stones in the White House or the parliament buildings are anything like stones in the Bible, they would show strong emotions. They wouldn’t reason with you; they would be passionate with loud emotion even when – especially when - no one else was joining in. They would always be accurate to the occasion. Offensive maybe, but accurate: If a lament were suitable, they would weep; if praise, they would shout it out immediately.
In this week’s sermon and this accompanying Touching Base, we’re going to come back to stones.
The Big Idea is this: Lamentation and Praise go together in God’s good news for human beings – the Gospel – and God’s good news is, after all, what Christmas is about.
This is the last Touching Base in our series on the Prophet, and the Book of, Jeremiah. Pastor Mark has posed hard questions over the last couple of months. What are your idols? What verses or passages of scripture do you “burn” by outright rejecting them or explaining them away? Are you willing to wear a plaid jacket from Costco in order to be countercultural? Jeremiah was imprisoned, put in stocks, and lowered into a mucky pit because he was countercultural.
So we’re wrapping up this series on the Second Sunday of Advent with the church decorated for Christmas and we’re talking about a weeping prophet. How does this work?
Weeping and Lamenting
I read through the Book of Jeremiah again during this sermon series. It’s not an easy read. God tells Jeremiah to say a lot of things. Many of the things are, not surprisingly, hard for the wicked to hear. Jeremiah is ignored, imprisoned, tortured. He is the weeping prophet: he weeps for Jerusalem, he weeps for the people left behind, he weeps for the people exiled, he weeps for himself and how he does just what God wants him to and is then abused for it.
Jeremiah must have cringed whenever he heard the Lord say, “Go and proclaim…go and proclaim,” over and over again.
Why did God need a prophet at all, one who persisted for 52 chapters “proclaiming” to the people?
God needed a prophet because he is gracious and merciful and longsuffering. He continually engaged his people and their leaders with instruction and love and second and third and fourth chances. And even when they reaped the punishment of exile, he still guided and took care of them.
How did God feel? Listen to the stones. Stones don’t often speak in the Bible, but when they do, they obey their Creator. They are pure emotion, straight-up intense emotion. It is as if the oldest and most primordial of God’s creation, the part that has been around the longest with the Creator, gives out the most apt but primitive of utterances. Not sophisticated, but right on.
See if you can find other examples of audible stones in the Bible.
So what does God feel? The stones (and God) lament. Lamentations 2:8: “He made the ramparts and walls lament.” The 2nd chapter of Lamentations is discussing God’s anger and what he has done; yet here the ramparts – the obedient stones – are lamenting. Matthew 23: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Here are the stones of Jerusalem weeping and lamenting with God at what is happening.
So the Book of Jeremiah is about a lot of warnings and a lot of consequences for sin and a lot of judgment. And then Jeremiah writes a book specifically about lament to go with it.
So is there any consolation, any hope? What else can the stones say?
Praise and Worship
Jeremiah is a book of prophecy in the sense that it’s about a prophet to whom God gives a message of warning. But Jeremiah also has the honour of foretelling the messiah’s advent (chs 23 & 33): The days are coming when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch…This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Saviour…in the villages around Jerusalem…flocks will again pass under the hand of the ones who counts them”.
Find other OT prophets who anticipated Christ’s Advent.
The expression “being saved” has vanished from our Christian vocabularies, but it is quite Biblical. What better place to stand than to be safe, to be saved? God calls Jesus a “saviour” throughout scripture. “He will save his people from their sins.” The Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?” – “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” “If you will confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). The people of Israel and Judah would be saved from the Babylonians, they would be saved from judgment, and, best of all, they would be saved from their sins.
Luke 2:8-14. “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord…Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peach, good will toward men’”.
Read Luke 19:37-40.
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Let’s talk more about stones. “…the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
“Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
“I tell you, he replied, “if they keep quiet, the very stones will cry out.”
Picture this. It’s the night Jesus was born. The shepherds are watching their flock. Suddenly a great company of angels appears, praising God. What if someone had then shouted at the glowing sky, “Stop it!” What if they’d shouted at the baby Jesus, “Rebuke those angels, Baby Jesus, shut them up!”
It’s absurd, blasphemous.
“Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
“Oh no, if they keep quiet, these very stones would immediately cry out!”
Here’s God’s primitive creation speaking because it cannot keep quiet. This isn’t judgment but triumph. They shout, not in lament, but in praise.
Let’s mix the verses in Jeremiah and Luke together. “Today, in the town of David, a Righteous Branch sprouting from David’s line has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord, Our Righteous Saviour.”
The stones lament because God must be judge. But he has provided a way of escape with Advent. And when he triumphs over sin, when sinners repent, when he is acknowledged as King, the stones cry out in praise and worship.
We live in a city built on, and built of, limestone. This Advent season, don’t leave it up to the stones to praise their Creator. God values your repentance and your praise far more.
Eric Prost
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
The Mute Stones Speak
Guest posting by Eric Prost
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
Read Jeremiah 23:5-6 and 33:12-16; Lamentations 2:8; Luke 19:37-40.
If the walls in your house could talk, what would they say? What if your walls could gossip? What is said when it’s just your family at home? How do you spend your time when you’re home alone?
What if the walls in the Oval Office could talk? Would they recite statistics and reasoned arguments? Would they praise the chief executives who have sat behind that desk? Or would they lament the dead in wars executed from that room or weep for the injustices of rich and poor?
If the stones in the White House or the parliament buildings are anything like stones in the Bible, they would show strong emotions. They wouldn’t reason with you; they would be passionate with loud emotion even when – especially when - no one else was joining in. They would always be accurate to the occasion. Offensive maybe, but accurate: If a lament were suitable, they would weep; if praise, they would shout it out immediately.
In this week’s sermon and this accompanying Touching Base, we’re going to come back to stones.
The Big Idea is this: Lamentation and Praise go together in God’s good news for human beings – the Gospel – and God’s good news is, after all, what Christmas is about.
This is the last Touching Base in our series on the Prophet, and the Book of, Jeremiah. Pastor Mark has posed hard questions over the last couple of months. What are your idols? What verses or passages of scripture do you “burn” by outright rejecting them or explaining them away? Are you willing to wear a plaid jacket from Costco in order to be countercultural? Jeremiah was imprisoned, put in stocks, and lowered into a mucky pit because he was countercultural.
So we’re wrapping up this series on the Second Sunday of Advent with the church decorated for Christmas and we’re talking about a weeping prophet. How does this work?
Weeping and Lamenting
I read through the Book of Jeremiah again during this sermon series. It’s not an easy read. God tells Jeremiah to say a lot of things. Many of the things are, not surprisingly, hard for the wicked to hear. Jeremiah is ignored, imprisoned, tortured. He is the weeping prophet: he weeps for Jerusalem, he weeps for the people left behind, he weeps for the people exiled, he weeps for himself and how he does just what God wants him to and is then abused for it.
Jeremiah must have cringed whenever he heard the Lord say, “Go and proclaim…go and proclaim,” over and over again.
Why did God need a prophet at all, one who persisted for 52 chapters “proclaiming” to the people?
God needed a prophet because he is gracious and merciful and longsuffering. He continually engaged his people and their leaders with instruction and love and second and third and fourth chances. And even when they reaped the punishment of exile, he still guided and took care of them.
How did God feel? Listen to the stones. Stones don’t often speak in the Bible, but when they do, they obey their Creator. They are pure emotion, straight-up intense emotion. It is as if the oldest and most primordial of God’s creation, the part that has been around the longest with the Creator, gives out the most apt but primitive of utterances. Not sophisticated, but right on.
See if you can find other examples of audible stones in the Bible.
So what does God feel? The stones (and God) lament. Lamentations 2:8: “He made the ramparts and walls lament.” The 2nd chapter of Lamentations is discussing God’s anger and what he has done; yet here the ramparts – the obedient stones – are lamenting. Matthew 23: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Here are the stones of Jerusalem weeping and lamenting with God at what is happening.
So the Book of Jeremiah is about a lot of warnings and a lot of consequences for sin and a lot of judgment. And then Jeremiah writes a book specifically about lament to go with it.
So is there any consolation, any hope? What else can the stones say?
Praise and Worship
Jeremiah is a book of prophecy in the sense that it’s about a prophet to whom God gives a message of warning. But Jeremiah also has the honour of foretelling the messiah’s advent (chs 23 & 33): The days are coming when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch…This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Saviour…in the villages around Jerusalem…flocks will again pass under the hand of the ones who counts them”.
Find other OT prophets who anticipated Christ’s Advent.
The expression “being saved” has vanished from our Christian vocabularies, but it is quite Biblical. What better place to stand than to be safe, to be saved? God calls Jesus a “saviour” throughout scripture. “He will save his people from their sins.” The Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?” – “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” “If you will confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). The people of Israel and Judah would be saved from the Babylonians, they would be saved from judgment, and, best of all, they would be saved from their sins.
Luke 2:8-14. “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord…Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peach, good will toward men’”.
Read Luke 19:37-40.
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Let’s talk more about stones. “…the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
“Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
“I tell you, he replied, “if they keep quiet, the very stones will cry out.”
Picture this. It’s the night Jesus was born. The shepherds are watching their flock. Suddenly a great company of angels appears, praising God. What if someone had then shouted at the glowing sky, “Stop it!” What if they’d shouted at the baby Jesus, “Rebuke those angels, Baby Jesus, shut them up!”
It’s absurd, blasphemous.
“Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
“Oh no, if they keep quiet, these very stones would immediately cry out!”
Here’s God’s primitive creation speaking because it cannot keep quiet. This isn’t judgment but triumph. They shout, not in lament, but in praise.
Let’s mix the verses in Jeremiah and Luke together. “Today, in the town of David, a Righteous Branch sprouting from David’s line has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord, Our Righteous Saviour.”
The stones lament because God must be judge. But he has provided a way of escape with Advent. And when he triumphs over sin, when sinners repent, when he is acknowledged as King, the stones cry out in praise and worship.
We live in a city built on, and built of, limestone. This Advent season, don’t leave it up to the stones to praise their Creator. God values your repentance and your praise far more.
Eric Prost
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Touching Base! Part 190
Jeremiah was a bullfrog? - Part 8
Idolatry's Appeal
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
This morning is part 2 in addressing the issue of idolatry found in Jeremiah. You can download last week’s TB by going to our website (www.bethelkingston.com).
The key text again this Sunday was Jeremiah 2:13, and the question we asked was, “Why would the people of Israel and Judah make this trade? Why would they trade in the Spring of Living Water for broken cisterns?” Our big idea answers the question. If you are discussing this TB in a small group take some time to consider several answers to this question. Here is the one we focused in on.
Big Idea: Idolatry appeals to our desires. In other words there is an aspect of idolatry that feels good. Like eating ice cream on a hot day.
Note in our text that this is a picture of work, labour, sweat, effort, cost, and energy. What do you think they believed as they intentionally moved away from God and embraced idols? No doubt they are thinking “This will satisfy my thirst”. They are not doing this to keep busy, or to fill the time - this effort is a thirst-quenching exercise!
What are the “thirsts” that idolatry will tell us it can satisfy?
For some help on this see the following.
Control: You know you have a control idol if your greatest nightmare is uncertainty.
Approval: You know you have an approval idol if your greatest nightmare is rejection.
Comfort: You know you have a comfort idol if your greatest nightmare is stress or demands.
Power: You know you have a power idol if your greatest nightmare is humiliation or embarrassment.
(Resource: Justin Buzzard – http://www.preachingtoday.com)
Read Jer. 2:23-25 and note the sensuality of this, the indulgence of an appetite. Whatever we inhale lines up with something in our hearts, something we “need”, something we want, something we crave. Note the addictive nature of idolatry in v.25.
Consequently it can be very hard to part with, or in the case of a good thing, to put it in its proper place. It can be like taking a cookie out of the hand of the cookie monster. Desires can make us addicts.
Someone might say, “But doesn’t God want to give me the desires of my heart?” Yes, but only when God is in charge, shaping our desires and showing us how to legitimately fulfill those desires. God doesn’t write blank cheques.
Take some time to discuss this and see what Jeremiah says about this in Jeremiah 10:23.
Dallas Willard has said that the central condition of spiritual formation is removing yourself from the center.
But notice how idolatry wants to put ME at the center. ME and my desires. Again this becomes an issue of authority which we see all began back in the garden.
Think about this statement: “Idolatry’s goal is to put the unqualified in control of our lives.” The “unqualified” are our desires from within. How are our desires unqualified? What might be their blind spots, their shortcomings?
Maybe this is why Proverbs 14:12 says “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”
Is it any wonder that Jeremiah says the cisterns are broken and cannot hold water? Listen to what one person says about sorrow and despair. I think this sums up leaky cisterns pretty well.
Sorrow is pain for which there are sources of consolation. Sorrow comes from losing one good thing among others, so that, if you experience a career reversal, you can find comfort in your family to get you through. Despair however, is inconsolable, because it comes from losing an ultimate thing. When you lose the ultimate source of your meaning or hope, there are no alternative sources to turn to. It breaks your spirit. (see Tim Keller – Counterfeit Gods, xiii).
Now read Jer. 9:23-24. Aren’t these great verses demonstrating why God is the Spring of Living Water?
The following are some ways to help you identify your idols. Remember that it is ultimately God the Holy Spirit that reveals the intentions and condition of our heart. Psalm 139 reminds us to allow God to search our hearts.
1. Look at your generational patterns. Note Jer. 2:5-“your forefathers”. What idols were “set up” in your family’s home? Have they been passed down?
2. Look at your culture. What is everyone worshiping? - note 2:13 “ My people” You just had to look around to see what the idols were in Judah. What do you see in our culture?
3. Look below the surface. Remember there are external idols, but the greater problem is the internal idols that allow the external idols to exist. See above regarding control, approval, comfort, power. If we don’t deal with the deeper idols it will be next to impossible to deal with the surface idols. Agree?
Here are some further examples of not so obvious idols:
Not only does idolatry exhale God from being the top priority, idolatry will often exhale other important things from being in the right priority. Idolatry does not just offend God it can offend those close to us. Just ask a spouse whose husband or wife works too much.
5. Take the IQ test (“Idolatry Quotient”):
“Do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser love for things that should be loved equally.” Augustine (in D.K. Naugle, 51)
Finally, I would say, do not be naive to the strategy of the enemy, 1 Peter 5:8. Idolatry is everywhere we look. If idolatry manifested itself through literal statues then every household in North America would be full. There would be no room for the people to even live in their homes.
We need to realize that warfare is real and we are targets. I like what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said - he saw the corruption of the Soviet system, felt the pressure to surrender and conform but courageously resisted and said “let the lie come, but not through me.”
Not through me oh Lord, not through me!
Mark
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
Idolatry's Appeal
(You can find a recording of this sermon here.)
This Touching Base is a useful tool for small group discussion, personal reflection or in a one-on-one conversation. We believe that if the Sunday teaching is discussed outside of the morning services, it will be an opportunity to go deeper and build healthy community because God's Word needs to be discussed in community.
This morning is part 2 in addressing the issue of idolatry found in Jeremiah. You can download last week’s TB by going to our website (www.bethelkingston.com).
The key text again this Sunday was Jeremiah 2:13, and the question we asked was, “Why would the people of Israel and Judah make this trade? Why would they trade in the Spring of Living Water for broken cisterns?” Our big idea answers the question. If you are discussing this TB in a small group take some time to consider several answers to this question. Here is the one we focused in on.
Big Idea: Idolatry appeals to our desires. In other words there is an aspect of idolatry that feels good. Like eating ice cream on a hot day.
Note in our text that this is a picture of work, labour, sweat, effort, cost, and energy. What do you think they believed as they intentionally moved away from God and embraced idols? No doubt they are thinking “This will satisfy my thirst”. They are not doing this to keep busy, or to fill the time - this effort is a thirst-quenching exercise!
What are the “thirsts” that idolatry will tell us it can satisfy?
For some help on this see the following.
Control: You know you have a control idol if your greatest nightmare is uncertainty.
Approval: You know you have an approval idol if your greatest nightmare is rejection.
Comfort: You know you have a comfort idol if your greatest nightmare is stress or demands.
Power: You know you have a power idol if your greatest nightmare is humiliation or embarrassment.
(Resource: Justin Buzzard – http://www.preachingtoday.com)
Read Jer. 2:23-25 and note the sensuality of this, the indulgence of an appetite. Whatever we inhale lines up with something in our hearts, something we “need”, something we want, something we crave. Note the addictive nature of idolatry in v.25.
Consequently it can be very hard to part with, or in the case of a good thing, to put it in its proper place. It can be like taking a cookie out of the hand of the cookie monster. Desires can make us addicts.
Someone might say, “But doesn’t God want to give me the desires of my heart?” Yes, but only when God is in charge, shaping our desires and showing us how to legitimately fulfill those desires. God doesn’t write blank cheques.
Take some time to discuss this and see what Jeremiah says about this in Jeremiah 10:23.
Dallas Willard has said that the central condition of spiritual formation is removing yourself from the center.
But notice how idolatry wants to put ME at the center. ME and my desires. Again this becomes an issue of authority which we see all began back in the garden.
Think about this statement: “Idolatry’s goal is to put the unqualified in control of our lives.” The “unqualified” are our desires from within. How are our desires unqualified? What might be their blind spots, their shortcomings?
Maybe this is why Proverbs 14:12 says “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”
Is it any wonder that Jeremiah says the cisterns are broken and cannot hold water? Listen to what one person says about sorrow and despair. I think this sums up leaky cisterns pretty well.
Sorrow is pain for which there are sources of consolation. Sorrow comes from losing one good thing among others, so that, if you experience a career reversal, you can find comfort in your family to get you through. Despair however, is inconsolable, because it comes from losing an ultimate thing. When you lose the ultimate source of your meaning or hope, there are no alternative sources to turn to. It breaks your spirit. (see Tim Keller – Counterfeit Gods, xiii).
Now read Jer. 9:23-24. Aren’t these great verses demonstrating why God is the Spring of Living Water?
The following are some ways to help you identify your idols. Remember that it is ultimately God the Holy Spirit that reveals the intentions and condition of our heart. Psalm 139 reminds us to allow God to search our hearts.
1. Look at your generational patterns. Note Jer. 2:5-“your forefathers”. What idols were “set up” in your family’s home? Have they been passed down?
2. Look at your culture. What is everyone worshiping? - note 2:13 “ My people” You just had to look around to see what the idols were in Judah. What do you see in our culture?
3. Look below the surface. Remember there are external idols, but the greater problem is the internal idols that allow the external idols to exist. See above regarding control, approval, comfort, power. If we don’t deal with the deeper idols it will be next to impossible to deal with the surface idols. Agree?
Here are some further examples of not so obvious idols:
False beliefs
“I don’t deserve God, this spring of living water. My past, my shame, my brokenness, my failures makes me more deserving of a broken leaky cistern.” Our false beliefs become idols because they end up having more authority over us than the truth.
Enemies4. Ask people close to you. (friends, family, team members, spouse) Why?
“many make even their enemies their god… when they are more troubled, disquieted, and perplexed at apprehensions of danger to their liberty, estates, and lives from men” than they are concerned about God’s displeasure.’ David Clarkson- 17th century English minister.
One person said noise can become an idol. It serves to distract and keep one from hearing the voice of God in His Word or the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Not only does idolatry exhale God from being the top priority, idolatry will often exhale other important things from being in the right priority. Idolatry does not just offend God it can offend those close to us. Just ask a spouse whose husband or wife works too much.
5. Take the IQ test (“Idolatry Quotient”):
- Where does my sense of security come from?
- Where does my sense of identity come from?
- What consumes my thoughts? What do I dream about?
- How do I feel when…. Is taken away or if it was taken away from me?
- How do I resemble the world?
- What do I habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of my heart?
- Where do I spend my money?
“Do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser love for things that should be loved equally.” Augustine (in D.K. Naugle, 51)
Finally, I would say, do not be naive to the strategy of the enemy, 1 Peter 5:8. Idolatry is everywhere we look. If idolatry manifested itself through literal statues then every household in North America would be full. There would be no room for the people to even live in their homes.
We need to realize that warfare is real and we are targets. I like what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said - he saw the corruption of the Soviet system, felt the pressure to surrender and conform but courageously resisted and said “let the lie come, but not through me.”
Not through me oh Lord, not through me!
Mark
If interested in joining or starting a small group contact bethelcommunitygroups@gmail.com
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