Sunday Service-May 2, 2010

Song-"Into the darkness You shine..Out of the ashes we rise...there's no one like You...none like You....Our God is healer...awesome in power...our God...our God....Water you turned into wine...opened the eyes of the blind...."

Turn the water of my life into wine.
Open my eyes where I'm blind.
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed.
Save me and I shall be saved.
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(The following are some of Pastor Frank's words and some of mine as well.)
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This is something I've been thinking about all week, and Pastor Frank mentioned something of it today, so I am taking the opportunity to write a little of what I was thinking about.
Acts 6-The disciples were getting caught up in the nitty gritty of church life and they called together the multitude of disciples and told them that it was not right that they should leave the word of God and serve tables. "Seek seven men among you of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word."
This pleased everyone and among those picked were Stephen and Philip as well as others whom we hear little about. The apostles prayed over them and laid hands on them.
Verse 7 is significant. "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." How interesting. Were these the same priests who had earlier condemned Jesus to death?
Stephen was full of faith and power and did many great wonders and signs among the people. Those who wanted to argue with him could not resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. I heard someone say the other day that too often, we would want to take Stephen out of his role and give him the name of pastor or teacher because he showed signs of giftedness. But God wanted to use him powerfully in the place He had called him without changing his title.
But what I really notice in this passage is how the word of God spread when the apostles were able to focus on prayer and to the ministry of the word. Pretty amazing and a relief to those whose calling gets mixed up with duty.
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In Isaiah 61, Jesus ministry is described. The ministry He had while He was here is described. The ministry He has now in the church is described. And the ministry He will fulfill upon His second coming is also described. That's what I think anyway.

Verse 3 talks about what He will do for Zion, which is the church.

"To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD,
that He may be glorified."

Pastor Frank said that ashes are a remnant of what was.
God is not moving to restore what was.
He is not into restoring my past.
The Spirit of the Lord takes what the enemy has taken from us.
He reaches into those ashes and exchanges, restores, and
embellishes that which the enemy robbed.
He takes those ashes and gives me Beauty in their place.
Beauty for ashes;
The theme of my life's story and
the song of the Redeemed.
Alleluia.

And God does all this-
comforts, consoles, gives beauty for ashes
and the oil of joy for mourning,
gives a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness-
in order that we may be called trees of righteousness
The planting of the LORD,
THAT HE MAY BE GLORIFIED.
He does all of this for us
for His own glory.
So we should let Him do it.

He loves the brokenhearted, the poor, the captive, the bound, the mourners,
those burned by life, and those who are heavy laden.
It is the sick He came to save.
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All during the service, (and all day and throughout Sunday night)
I kept picturing that beautiful painting
of the loving shepherd, leaning down over a cliff,
trying to rescue the sheep that was lost.
That sheep got too close to the edge.
He wasn't 'in' the flock.
He was on the peripheral and then he was gone.
And Jesus loved Him enough to rescue
Him from the disaster he put himself into.
He held him close to His heart
and did not reject Him.

(How quickly we let people go when they don't see things our way.
How quickly we freeze them out if they dare think for themselves.
How willing we are to push them off the cliff because they don't fit our mold.
Why did the lost sheep get lost?
Did he do this to himself or did we help him get lost?
These are the questions that search my heart.)

Jesus leaves the 99 who are safe in the fold
and goes to seek that one lost lamb,
because He is a shepherd,
and not a hireling.
The Good Shepherd lays His life down for His sheep.
(This was not really the sermon, but this is the sermon I was getting from that picture that kept coming to my mind.)
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Judges 17; 18:4-
There was a man named Micah who heard that his mother had put a curse on the person who had stolen 1,100 shekels of silver from her, and he got a little nervous and went to confess to his mother that he was the one who had stolen it. She was so proud of him for confessing his sin that she gave 200 shekels of silver to a silversmith and from that silver, he made a carved and a molded image which she promptly gave to Micah and he used them to set up a shrine in his house along with some other idols. He consecrated one of his own sons as a priest for his household.
"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
Now a young Levite man was passing through and Micah employed him to be his priest. So he lived with the man and became like a son to him. Micah was sure that God would be good to him since he had a Levite as a priest.

In this story, we see what happens in a family when the head of the home calls evil good, and good evil. It started with the mother and continued with the son and eventually the Danites stole Micah's idols and his priest. Then they went to a nice group of people who were quiet and secure and burned down their city and killed its residents and set up for themselves Micah's carved images even though the house of God was in Shiloh. They were to go to Shiloh to worship God.
Instead they worshiped idols in their own home.

Because a mother did not discipline her son when he stole from her, but was willing to call this evil thing good, it affected not only her household, but the household of the Danites, and then in their false security of having their own priest, they destroyed another town. How far reaching does the evil or the good in one household extend? It can affect the church and then the community...the town...a city...the state....and a nation...and eventually, the world.

We are living in a nation that is doing what is right in its own eyes. We are redefining marriage. We are redefining truth. And it started in our homes.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.
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Marks gospel relates the story of the wild storm at sea. The disciples were frightened because they were on a little boat out in the middle of the sea and Jesus was asleep with His head on a pillow in the middle of that storm in the middle of their boat! They decided to wake Him up. He rebuked the winds and the waves and they immediately calmed down. He rebuked the disciples a bit too. When they came to the other side of the sea, they were greeted by a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs and no one could subdue him. He saw Jesus from afar and came to worship Him. The demons recognized Him and implored Him not to torment them. Jesus said, "Come out of the man, unclean spirit! What is your name?!" The spirit answered, 'My name is legion; for we are many.' The spirit begged Jesus not to send them out of the country. They asked to be sent to the swine in order to enter them and that's where He sent them and the swine ran off the cliff right into the sea and drowned. So the towns people came out to see Jesus and the man who was no longer demon possessed and they were afraid. They asked Jesus to leave and He did. The man who was now free begged to go along with Him and Jesus told him to go back home and tell his friends what the Lord had done for him, and eventually, that man's witness reached more people than Jesus presence probably would have had He stayed in the pig farming region for a time. The man told his freedom story in the Decapolis which was a ten city wide region.
I love that it says that the man came running to worship Him. The demons spoke through the man and held him captive, but the man knew His deliverer and worshipped Him. The demons worshiped Him also.

The story of the delivered demoniac demonstrates the power of one changed life and how it positively affects one's family and community, and in this case, the world, for surely, much of the world has heard this man's story.

The story of Micah demonstrates the corruption of one life and how it can negatively influence the family, community, and nation.
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We may be a product of negative things in our life but we don't have to be a victim of those things. We don't have to keep passing on our pain and affect others negatively because of our experiences.
How so?
Because we have a God who is like no other, who has promised to give us Beauty for ashes, and we can trust Him because He is good.

And because you have set your love upon Him, therefore, He will deliver you.
He will set you on high, because you have known His name.
You will call upon Him and He will answer you.
He will be with you in trouble.
He will deliver you and honor you.
With long life shall He satisfy you
and show you His salvation.

Sounds like beauty for ashes to me.

I saw Him reach into my ashes today
and bring out beauty for someone else's ashes.
Together, He will make us oak trees of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord,
that He might be glorified.

From ashes to beauty.
From broke to an oak.
From captive to free.
From lost to found.

The work of God
is to take us from ~~~~
and bring us to~~~~~.

The work is endless
and yet it is complete.

Sunday Service-April 25, 2010

Song-"...Into the darkness you shine...
Out of the ashes we rise...There's no one like You."

Missions video-I was moved by this video clip. I thought about it all this week. Sometimes, we glamorize the work of a missionary. But effective missions work looks a lot like this-Jesus, and Peter, James, and John. I saw photos of missionaries discipling just a few, or even one. This is what works permanent change in individual lives. Jesus had His times with the masses, but it was the few He invested His time in who took His message to the world. It's because of one of those disciples, that I know Jesus now.

(My perception on the sermon and what I think I heard Pastor Frank say.)
(I wish I could figure out how to word the perfect disclaimer-one that would give honor where honor is due and yet leave room for my human error in the process of hearing and writing.)

"Kadesh"-holy-'There is no one like You.
Our God is greater and stronger and higher than any other~~
~situation
~debt
~consuming sorrow
~addiction
~you name it
~god

God calls us our new name now.
He calls us by His finished product.
(Just like He called the 'sinner' a new name-'forgiven.'
What a great new name to have!)

What we are experiencing in the Spirit is in direct proportion
to our hunger for the Word of God.

Take a step of faith and a step of works.
Eventually, it becomes as natural as walking
and we will be unable to separate the two.

Faith will cease when we see Him because we'll be like Him.
When we see Him, all that remains is love.

He holds the universe and He mourns when a sparrow falls.
If He is holding us in the palm of His hands,
then we can cry "'Kadesh' , Holy. There is no one like our God!"

Paul, under house arrest, wrote Philippians.
He exhorted the church to 'Rejoice evermore.'
How could Paul rejoice under confinement?
He was learning to know an incomparable God
and his circumstances no longer mattered.

There is no room for other gods.
We're living in a culture of relativism;
tolerance abounds.
There is no one like our God.
He is the King of Kings,
the Alpha and Omega,
The Bright Morning Star,
Our Wonderful Counselor,
The Prince of Peace.

Don't try to bring my God down to an even playing ground.
He will shake things up and you will see that He is 'I AM'-
the God above all.

Phil 1:18-Paul rejoiced that the Word of God was being preached even though those preaching had the wrong motives.
Light overcomes darkness; darkness doesn't overcome light.
Dryness doesn't overcome fire; fire overcomes dryness.
Your fire will catch dryness on fire.
Your light will make the darkness light.
The power of the Word of God overcomes any wrong motive for preaching.
Therefore, rejoice!

Phil 2:17-Paul rejoiced that His life was being poured out.

The Bible says that the latter days will be greater than the former days.
The former days were glorious with salvation.
Someone is about ready to step into an arena of favor,
of power, and of doing the greater things Jesus talked about.
Someone is about ready to step into your latter and leave your former behind.

Story: A family's house was burning. A man's son climbed up to the roof. His father yelled for him to jump. The boy screamed, "But I can't see you!" The father cried, "That's all right. I can see you!"

God can see me even when I cannot see Him.
God can hear me even when I cannot hear Him.

Phil. 3:7-10-Paul just wanted to know Jesus. He counted all else as loss.

Phil. 4:4-Paul exhorted the believers to just 'rejoice.'
Stop worrying about the mouths of lions, the bigness of the giants, prison, chains, depression, your marriage, your children and grandchildren.
There is no one like Your God.
Rejoice in Him.
Help us to understand how big You are Lord.
We try to find our answer in so many things.
The Spirit of God in my life is a stronger opposing force than anything that would come against me.

Thirty-five pounds of chains were holding Paul and Silas in a prison cell.
But they began to sing because they knew the joy of sharing in His suffering.
They worshiped the God who was like no other.
The prison cell could not contain that kind of worship.
And there is no depression or discouragement that can hold you like a prison cell
when you worship the God who is like no other. God looks for a people who love and worship Him just because He's God and not because of what He does or does not do.

I want to experience everything God has for me.
We've lost a generation because we've tried to keep God in a religious box.
I want to look at Jesus.
If we don't know the fellowship of His suffering,
we won't experience His death and the power of His resurrection.
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Even as we step into the latter from the former, each latter day
will become a former day as we go deeper into the latter,
and we will be changed from glory to glory
and we will go from strength to strength.

Paul wanted only 'to know Him' and because of this,
he was content in every situation,
because each circumstance-
whether he had much or little,
whether he was full or hungry-
gave him opportunity to know Christ.
I wonder if it would be accurate to say
that when life was difficult,
Paul experienced the fellowship of His sufferings,
and when it was great,
he experienced the power of His resurrection,
so that no matter what happened,
He was experiencing the fullness of Christ
and was getting to know Him
and therefore, he rejoiced.

Truly, it would change our lives if we lived like this.

Waiting Amplified

God waits on us.
We wait on God.

Perhaps Isaiah would have said it this way
when he was in a more talkative mood.
(Isaiah 30:18-Amplified version)

And therefore, the LORD earnestly waits-
expecting, looking, and longing
to be gracious to you;
and therefore He lifts Himself up,
that He may have mercy on you
and show loving-kindness to you.

For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed-happy, fortunate, to be envied-
are all those who earnestly wait for Him,
who expect and look and long for Him,
for His victory, His love, His peace,
His joy and His matchless,
unbroken fellowship!

He expects, looks and longs for us.
And we are blessed if we do the same for Him.
I have this verse by my desk and I read it often.
I love how 'He lifts Himself up' to be kind to me.

He gets up off His throne to show me loving kindness
and tender mercies.
I look for them.
I wait.
And as I wait,
He gives me His sweet unbroken fellowship.

And then I realize,
that this sweet unbroken fellowship,
IS His loving kindness towards me.
It IS His tender mercy.

What better gift could He give me than this?
Thank You, dear holy and merciful God.