Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (10.21.16)

Hey Church!

I hope you're having an awesome week.  We've got a big weekend coming up!

This Saturday at 9 a.m., come out to Harmony Grove to clean out The Commons to get ready for construction.  We've got to get it totally cleared out.  We'll have donuts, coffee, and juice.

On Sunday, we begin a brand new series called "Surviving the Election."  It's going to be a great three weeks as we look for hope in this contentious political season.  I believe the Church can offer a fresh word into our lives this election.  Invite a friend and see you there!

Thought for the Week
"The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” 1 Samuel 24:6

I love the story and character of David in the Old Testament.  He's most well known for his slaying of the giant, Goliath, but his life offers rich resources of faithfulness and the frailties of our own humanity.  At his best, David had an incredibly sound perspective in the heat of the moment.  In this passage, he has a chance to kill his adversary, King Saul, in a vulnerable and weak moment.  It will be quick and decisive.  His men have offered to do it for him.  This will put him on the throne and raise him to leadership over all of Israel.  He won't do it.  It's not the right thing to do.  It's not the right way to go about his business.  God has already anointed and called him to be king, but it is not his time, and it should not happen this way.  David won't be controlled by his impulses, "God forbid I should do that."  We are kind of a culture of impulses.  We buy what we want when we want.  We do what we want when we want.  On Demand even allows us to watch what we want when we want.  Isn't it great!  There is very little call for restraint in our world.  But faithfulness to God, trust in God...it requires patience and restraint.  What David is saying is, "God forbid I take a shortcut to my destiny.  No, I wan't do it.  I won't do something wrong to try to get to what is right.  I'll wait."  Every day we face 'in the heat of the moment' instances.  It is so easy to take the easy way out.  It is so easy to take the shortcut.  It is so easy to take the path of least resistance.  Could we exercise a kind of Godly restraint that says, "God forbid I do it that way?"  You won't regret it.  We will most certainly always regret doing it our own way when God demands otherwise.  David eventually became King.  He eventually met his destiny.  God came through in David's patience.  He always does.

In Christ,

Carter r

Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (10.13.16)

Hey Church!

I hope you've had a great week with this absolutely gorgeous weather.  I'm excited about concluding our series "Sorry Not Sorry" this Sunday.  We've talked a lot the last few weeks about the repentance that goes on deep in our heart.  For sure, that's where it starts.  This week, we'll close out our series by talking about what that repentance looks like on the outside.  I hope to see you there as we discover how true repentance looks in our everyday lives.

Thought for the Week
"But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead."  Philippians 3:13

My family doesn't have a lot of TV shows that we regularly watch.  We're a little too busy for that.  But, we do have one show:  The Flash.  The Flash was my favorite superhero growing up and my boys love him, too.  We just started season 3.  As the show has progressed, there has been a lot more time travel involved, and The Flash has learned that going back and trying to 'fix' tragic events doesn't really 'fix' anything.  In fact, it messes everything up.  The past makes us all who we are, and if we were to change it, well, we wouldn't be us.  A lot of people do emotional and mental time travel.  They constantly focus on the things they did wrong, they live in the past, dwell on mistakes, and live with the guilt of how it went wrong.  Sometimes we even try to over-correct for our past.  It never works.  Everything from the past brought you here, to this moment.  You can't change it.  We can move forward with God.  What is ahead is a life God has planned for you that you could never imagine, but you can't dwell on what was.  Embrace what could be.  Perhaps your struggle with addiction will be a testimony to help other addicts.  Perhaps your mistake as a teenager will help other teenagers.  Perhaps your mistakes in a first marriage will help others in young marriages or even you in a future marriage.  Perhaps you learned some lessons others can learn through you.  Perhaps God wants to leverage who you have become to be all you can be.  Don't look back.  Forget it.  God has.  You're forgiven if you have sought forgiveness in Christ.  Move forward.  Don't let yesterday drag you down.  God has too many plans for you tomorrow.  But you can live them if you're constantly traveling back in time to try and fix a past that God's has already forgotten.

Because of Jesus,

Carter 

Tough times, tough people and a tougher God

I read a line in a book recently that went something like this, "Just because you're going through tough times doesn't necessarily mean you're outside of God's will."  I had to let that sink in for a moment.  It's so true.  It's so profound.

There is kind of an underlying sentiment that almost all of us share that if we're going through something bad, we must've done something wrong.  God is judging us, angry at us, and out to get us.  God is the big bully in the sky, and we just need to get back aligned with him and our lives will be smooth sailing.

This thinking comes from the myth that if we will follow Jesus that our lives will be rainbows, unicorns and lollipops.  Everything will be okay with God in our lives.  He will protect us and lead us into greener pastures.  I'm just not sure that's accurate.

So, the only natural response to tough times is thinking we've done something wrong.  We're not doing what God wants us to do.  There's no Biblical merit to that thinking.  You might be going through tough times precisely BECAUSE you're smack dab in the center of God's Will.  The world might be opposed to God's will, so if you're in it, the world might be opposed to you.  There's just no correlation.  Life is up and down, and there's little we can do about it.

The task is to remain faithful.  Now, to be sure -- sometimes our sin and stupid decisions put us in a tough spot.  We usually know when we've done that.  But sometimes the test results just come back positive.  Sometimes we just get caught in the massive layoff.  Sometimes people betray us.  Sometimes someone rear-ends us.  Sometimes the water line leaks.  Sometimes life happens. And it's not because you're against God's will.

So trust Him.  Don't wait for things to turn around to trust Him.  Don't wait till he 'comes through' to prove himself to you.  That's not faith.  Trust Him in the valley.  They say tough times don't last, but tough people do.  Maybe that's true, but I've faced times in which I didn't feel as tough as what was going on around me.  But God is tougher.  Trust him in the season of mess.  It's not because He's turned His back on you.  He's there.  He'll outlast it.

Why?

With Hurricane Matthew quickly approaching the East Coast, I'm reminded of the tension we all live with:  Why do bad things happen?

Though it's no easier to stomach, we at least 'get it' when someone does something evil and the innocent are injured or killed.  We can explain it so much more easily.  Someone made an ugly decision.  Evil actions by one can affect many.  We get that.

But hurricanes?  Floods?  Tornadoes?  Typhoons?  Earthquakes?  Why?  Why, God, why?

Perhaps this is the point at which many who don't consider themselves people of faith shun God.  "If God were real or loving," one might say, "how could God let such a terrible thing happen?"  Even people of faith struggle through this.  Doesn't God control the weather?  Why wouldn't God stop a storm from killing hundreds, sometimes thousands?  Is God judging us, and does that fit with the character of God that that I thought I knew?

See...lots of questions.

There aren't many easy answers in the face of disaster and tragedy.  Nothing really soothes us and makes us feel 'okay' about the hurt and heartache we are witnessing.  But there is an explanation.  In a sense, we are under judgment, but not the way you think.

I don't believe that natural disasters occur because God is judging a particular region or people.  That's not the message of the Bible.  The story of the Scriptures is that we are all under judgment because of sin.  Sin messed all this up.

Shortly after the original sin of Adam and Eve, in Genesis 3:17 God says to Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you." The earth is cursed because of sin.  Because of sin, everything is not as it should be.  The cosmos was knocked off its axis.  Creation is out of sync with the Creator.

Storms, floods, earthquakes...these were not part of the original plan.  This was all supposed to be perfect.  We were supposed to be in perfect relationship with God.  Sin messed it up.  Sin messed it ALL up.

What we are seeing is the result of a broken world, but this is not the end of the story.  In fact, people of faith are environmentalists of the highest order.  For while Jesus came to save humanity, we believe God is at work to redeem all of Creation.  Creation longs for this.  Romans 8:22 says, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."  And when Christ comes in final victory, we believe that not only are we made new, but there is a new heaven and new earth.  Everything will be restored.  No more storms, no more tragedy.

In the meantime, our hope is in prayer.  And our task is in being the people of God in the midst of tragedy, whether that means donating money, flood buckets or supplies.  Until there is a new earth and all of Creation has been redeemed, let us be the glimmer of redemption when brokenness rears it's ugly head.