“Going a little farther, he fell facedown and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
There are some parts of the Christian life that are pretty easy to sell. The love and forgiveness and eternal life practically offer themselves to newcomers. Having God on your side and with you all the time doesn’t hurt either. There are some parts, though, that are a little less customer-friendly sounding. One of those is put on display here in Jesus’ conversation with His Father shortly before going to the cross. Let’s talk this morning about what happens when our will and God’s will aren’t the same.
“How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How joyful is a person whom the Lord does not charge with iniquity and in whose spirit is no deceit! When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was drained as in the summer’s heat. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not conceal my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Have you ever done anything wrong? I have a sneaking suspicion the answer to that question is yes. How did that make you feel? Be honest now. If you did it right, in the moment it probably felt good. That’s the tricky thing about sin. In the moment it usually feels pretty good. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be so drawn to do it. The thing is, though, that in the moment feeling doesn’t tend to last very long. After a while, it gets replaced by something else: guilt. Guilt doesn’t feel so good. Guilt is a feeling we want to get rid of. David in Psalm 32 here tells us how. Let’s see what he has to say this morning.
“Peter and John answered them, ‘Whether it’s right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide; for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Throughout the Scriptures, one of the most basic calls on the life of every follower of Jesus is to worship the Lord. We are called, invited, and even commanded to do it. And, each and every week, hundreds of millions of believers gather in church services all over the world to do just that. But if we are not careful, we can begin to develop some thinking about worship because of this repeating pattern of gathering weekly that doesn’t quite align with the fullness of the understanding of worship commended to us in the Scriptures. One of the things I’ve been reading about lately is worship. This morning, let me share some thoughts about it.
As we prepare to enter into the new year together, many of us are thinking toward the future. What does it hold? Will we be able to handle what is coming at us? Those are big questions, but as followers of Jesus, all of them must necessarily fall subject to what His plans for us are. In the New Year’s sermon, we took some time together to talk about how to move into the future with the kind of attitude that will see the most Gospel advances happen in the world around us. Enjoy.
Fueled by Boldness
Have you ever made a really bold ask before? A woman named Demi Skipper did and she wound up with a house for her efforts. After watching a Ted Talk by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian man who started with a paperclip and traded his way up to a house, Demi decided she was going to try the same thing. She started with a single bobby pin and began trading. After offering to trade that bobby pin for pretty much whatever anyone was interested in trading for it, she eventually found a woman willing to trade her a pair of earrings for it. These earrings became a couple of margarita glasses, and the race was on. Demi traded her way through a snowboard, a MacBook laptop computer, various other pieces of jewelry, a Peloton stationary exercise bike, three tractors, a celebrity card at Chipotle, which entitles the holder to free food, a solar-powered trailer home, and finally a small house in Clarkston, TN where she and her husband will relocate to from San Francisco. Not a bad deal. Sure, the taxes are a little higher on a house than a bobby pin, but it’ll serve them a few more purposes including giving Demi a home base from which to attempt the whole thing again with the goal in mind of giving the house away to a family in need. She documented her entire adventure on TikTok.
This week we finally wrap up our Advent – and now Christmas – teaching series, The World Turned Upside Down. All this month we have been taking a journey through Luke’s telling of the story of the birth of Jesus. It has been a powerful journey, and there have been several new things to learn from these old and familiar stories. This week is no different. While the stories of Jesus’ birth and other heroes of the faith are flashy and impressive, we live most of our lives in the mundane. The trick is: so did they. Their ability to have the giant impact they had came out of their faithfulness in these mundane moments. Let’s dig in and talk about it together. As one more note, this will be the only post for this week. I’m taking this week off to spend extra time with my family. I look forward to being back together with you again in the New Year.
Big Things from Small Places
Have you noticed lately how few truly new television shows there are? The same thing goes with movies. Now, don’t get me wrong, many of the remakes and relaunches and revivals they have done have been terrific. Nostalgia is a terrible god to worship, but it makes for some really fun media content to enjoy. Season 4 of Cobra Kai comes out this week on Netflix and I am about as excited as I can be for that one. If you haven’t seen it, it’s basically a modern day continuation of the Karate Kid story from the super popular 1980s film franchise. Now, as a bit of a warning before you go check it out if you haven’t, the language of the series is pretty awful, but the redemption element of the story and the way the writers keep weaving in Gospel concepts has been pretty cool to see.
The Nexus 