Series: This is Why! : “Change and Jesus”

(Romans 8:28-29; 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 4:19)

1. our fall series entitled This is Why. This is why we exist. This is why we do what we do. We’re talking about our mission & values.

2. 2 weeks ago I covered our mission statement – we exist to make disciples of Jesus Christ who love God and love others.

3. we have 5 values: worship, prayer (Kyle last week), transformation, community & prayer. This week I want to focus our attention upon our transformation value.

4. pray

change
1. how many of you like change? Most of us are creatures of habit & are slow to embrace change. But have you ever thought about this – our Christian faith is all about change. To be a follower of Christ requires, even demands, that we embrace change.

2. when we say Yes to Jesus as our Savior & Lord, a life-time of change begins. Change with regards to our –
§ sinful nature
§ life purpose & destiny
§ perspectives on greatness ambition success
§ relationship to money sex power
§ understanding of politics
§ use of time
§ marriage & family
§ the poor & disenfranchised of our world
3. transformation means change. God is in the process of changing us. That’s what I want to talk about today.

4. a few of us went to the Oregon-Cal game at Autzen yesterday. We took along an avid Beaver fan. Even though the Ducks lost (beat themselves) our Beaver Nation friend changed colors & became a Duck follower – that’s transformation!

the big picture
1. 1st I want to give you the ‘big picture’ view of the Bible & human history. I give you 1 name & 4 words.

2. Triune God of grace – everything begins with God, Father Son Spirit. God has existed forever in a community of love, unity & joy.

3. creation – God creates the world. He populates it with people. Why? So that he could bring us into the circle of his love. He creates the human race in his image & likeness. All is good.

4. fall – Genesis 3 begins Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. There’s been a rebellion among a group of angels in heaven. Some have chosen to go off on their own following Satan.

5. Satan tempts Eve. Both Adam & Eve disobey God & eat from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. At that split second everything changes. God’s perfect creation is spoiled. Sin contaminates every part of creation. The world fragments.

6. salvation – God sends his Son Jesus to fix things. Read I Timothy 2:3-6 tell us how. This is the good news:
à God is our Savior NOT just our Creator
à Jesus is God = one God
à Jesus is man = the man Christ Jesus
à Jesus is our ransom = we were born in bondage to sin & judgment, unable to save ourselves, unable to reverse the affects of the fall. Jesus paid the price for our deliverance on the cross
à Jesus is the one mediator between God & men = implied resurrection, Jesus lives on as our exalted, heavenly, mediator Savior
Jesus alone reverses the affects of the fall.

7. restoration – but Jesus doesn’t stop at redemption. He is going to restore all things to its Eden-like existence. A new heaven & a new earth. Salvation & restoration touch everything, absolutely everything in creation, from sub-atomic atoms to Adam’s race.

8. Triune God Creation Fall Salvation Restoration. Transformation occurs within this bigger picture. After coming to Jesus we participate in the life of the church. We learn & apply Scripture to our lives. We build relationships with others. We pray. We serve. We sacrifice. We love. We worship with all that we have & all that we are. We tell others about Jesus. In Jesus we participate in salvation & restoration.

9. clay salmon mounted on a heavy piece of wire in the flower bed at our front door. I broke it one day trimming the shrubs. Heather took it & super-glued it back together:
à creator – Diane Wright
à creation – she shaped, painted, fired the fish
à fall – I broke it
à salvation – Heather glued it
à restoration – put back in the flower bed
Once we say “yes” to Jesus & enter into his life, we spend the rest of our lives between being glued back together & placed in the flower bed. This is transformation (sanctification).

Transformation
1. I have 4 New Testament texts that I want to cover.

2. Romans 8:28-29: what does God want for us? To be conformed to the likeness of his Son. This is not a superficial conformity. This is inward, deep & thorough.

3. there’s some expansive theological concepts here that I don’t have time to unpack – calling, foreknowledge, predestination. What I want you to get is this – the end result of God’s work in our life is transformation into the likeness of Jesus. God wants to shape & form us to be like his Son.

4. and because of our sin nature, our selfishness, our stubbornness this is a life-time change. We never arrive.

5. Romans 12:1-2: 12:1 has to do with our bodies – offer them to God as living sacrifices. 12:2 has to do with our minds – be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Again, this speaks of a deep inward change.

6. here’s how the process works: 1st we apply our minds to the reading & study of God’s Word by the Spirit’s leading. 2nd we find ourselves increasingly able to discern & desire God’s will. 3rd as a result we are transformed, changed in our character & conduct. We choose Christ. We become more like Christ.

7. 2 Corinthians 3:18: the background for this is Moses coming down from Mt Sinai after spending time in God’s presence. He face was shining & radiant with God’s glory. He had to veil himself.

8. Paul picks up on this & applies it to our transformation. Again, we are being transformed into his likeness. The Lord who is the Spirit is doing the transforming.

9. by the Holy Spirit’s power at work in our lives we progressively experience more & more freedom to obey God. This results in our being changed into the likeness of Christ. This is a deep, inward change that we are powerless to produce on our own. It must come from God as we surrender to the work of his Spirit in our lives.

10. Galatians 4:19: here is Paul’s heart for Christ-followers. Until Christ is formed in you. Until you take the shape of Christ. Paul goes into labor for those in the church NOT just that Christ would dwell in them BUT that Christ would be seen & formed in them.

The goal
1. the goal of transformation is to become like Jesus.

2. C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity the Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. To become new men means losing what we now call ‘ourselves.’ Out of our selves, into Christ, we must go. The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. Lewis calls this process Transformation.

3. of our 5 values transformation is our foundational value. Unless we are inwardly & deeply changed into the image of Christ we will fail to worship, pray, build community & engage in mission in a Christ-honoring & kingdom-spreading manner.

4. we are entering a new threshold in the life of our church. Over the past few years we have been through the fire – the fire of some internal conflict & the fire of our church building.

5. fire is a metaphor for cleansing & refining in Scripture. God wants us to rise from the ashes. Into new life. Into new pathways of transformation. Into new avenues of change.

6. God wants to create a CAC church culture of revolution, renovation, change, transformation, sanctification, growth & metamorphosis. We’ve been targeted by God. And ours is to surrender.

7. transformation is the key to our future. The key to becoming a praying church. A worshipping church. A community-minded church. A missional church. No transformation – no difference-making for the kingdom of God.

8. I love apples which is part of the reason I love the fall. Liken your life in Christ to producing apples. Some of us have produced blossoms for years & that’s all. Some of us have produced walnut-sized apples but little else. Others of us have produced green apples ready to ripen. How many of us have produced a ripe, crisp, sweet honey crisp apple?

9. Christ is waiting within us to produce apples of his kingdom work in & through out lives.

10. this morning I challenge you to pursue transformation is Christ. Move on. Move ahead!

Series: This is Why! “We Exist”

Note from blog administrator: Last week's message “From Darkness to Hope” regarding depression generated a great deal of responses. For those who would like to read the notes from that message, you can find it here.

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(Matthew 22:34-40; 28:19-20; Acts 1:7-8)
September 16, 2007

1st – thanks for emails, stories, comments after my message on depression; greatest response I’ve had to a message in memory

2nd silence to pray & open your hearts to God

3rd Lord Christ, you are welcome in this place today, in our lives, in our hearts, in our response. Fill me with your Spirit. Speak to us today. In Jesus name, amen.

4th no edit video interviews – what does it mean to be a disciple?

This is Why…
1. today begins a new 6 week series entitled This is Why…why we as the CAC exist; why we do what we do.

2. As we move into the fall, move into our new facility, I believe it’s of utmost importance that we be reminded of our reason for being.

3. if you work for Starbucks you will get their This is Why talk. (By the way, next time you go to Moscow a venti mocha will cost you $8.98 at Russia’s first Starbucks) Their mission – Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles while we grow. This is why Starbucks exists – to make the finest coffee in the world available to us here in Canby.

4. Starbucks was forced to create its own mission statement. They had to roast, steam, froth it up. Not so with us. Ours is a given. Ours comes from Scripture & the mouth of Jesus.

5. turn to Matthew 28:19-20 – the Great Commission. Let’s read this together.

6. now turn to Matthew 22:34-40. The Great Commandment.

7. put the Great Commission & the Great Commandment together & what you have is our mission statement. This is Why….we exist. To make disciples of Jesus Christ who love God and love others. Let’s say this together. Again.

Jesus Christ
1. we start with Jesus. I like what E. Stanley Jones wrote in 1930 – there are four pillars upon which Christ’s gospel rests: his life, his cross, his resurrection, and his coming into the lives of men, Pentecost. This is the Jesus that we have to deal with.

2. he walked this earth as the Son of God, fully God & fully man. He died on the cross for our sin. He rose from the dead to defeat sin, death & Satan. And he comes into our lives & empowers us through the Holy Spirit.

3. its popular today to take Jesus & add to him as well as subtract from him. 10 years ago I interviewed Mary Manin-Morresey, who at that time was pastor of the Living Enrichment Center in Wilsonville (imploded because of financial improprieties).

She added to Jesus. Jesus was their primary teacher but they also resourced Buddha, Mohammed & a ton of pop psychology. Jesus +.

She subtracted from Jesus as well. The Living Enrichment Center emphasized the soft side of Jesus while ignoring his hard sayings like – deny self, take up cross, follow me OR I am the way, the truth & the life.
Jesus -.

4. the Jesus of our mission statement is the Jesus of the Scriptures, all of him, 100%. The Jesus of the historic creeds of the Christian church. The Jesus who is our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer & Coming King.

Disciple
1. very simply a disciple is a learner, a follower of someone. Disciple is NOT a uniquely religious concept. The world has always had disciples. Plato & Socrates had disciples in ancient Greece.

2. today, Oprah has her disciples. People who religiously watch her program. They listen to her words, embrace her viewpoints & practice her eclectic brand of spirituality.

Ernest Hemingway had his disciples. He published a novel in 1927, The Sun Also Rises, about Paris in the 1920s. His writing was sparse, minimalist. A whole band of writers tried to imitate his new style.

3. Disciple is the primary term used in the New Testament to refer to Jesus’ followers. While the word ‘Christian’ is found 3 times, ‘disciple’ is found 269 times.

5. a disciple is someone who whole-heartedly follows after Jesus Christ. This following is marked by personal attachment & commitment.

6. I’ve been a Christ-follower since 1974. I’m just as much a follower of Jesus now as then. Just as much a learner of his person & ways now as then. I hope that’s still true in another 30 years. We never arrive.

7. a disciple of Jesus Christ is someone who follows him & learns from him.

Make
1. Jesus commands his disciples to make disciples. What does this mean?

2. 1st making disciples begins with witness (Acts 1:8) – you will be my witnesses. We tell people about Jesus. We speak of him to others.

3. this witness also involves the way we live. Words + deeds. Does our lifestyle, character match our confession?

4. 2nd making disciples involves asking for a response. Eventually we ask people to decide. What are you going to do with Jesus? When my brother Tom was dying of cancer 18 months ago, I asked him if he was ready to say “yes” to Jesus. Ready to make a commitment.

5. 3rd making disciples involves passing on the faith. To those who say “yes” to Jesus, ours is to – teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. There is a body of truth to be learned & lived out.

6. this is where our Common Ground classes come in for adults – 10:30-11:30am once we move into the new building. Tanis Snyder will be teaching a class on Prophecy, Israel & the End Times. I will be teaching a class entitled: A Journey into Spiritual Formation: what it means to be formed into Christ-likeness. I’ll be talking about things like spiritual direction, personality types, spiritual habits or disciplines, the affect of American culture upon our faith…

7. Transformation groups fit in here as well – small groups of 10-16 people who regularly meet for community, sharing, study & prayer. Sign-ups begin today on the back table:
à Tim Barton – discuss the days sermon
à Ken Baker – 2 Samuel
à Dennis Trussell – The Jesus Creed
à Dave Gordon - Andy Stanley DVD study called Take It to the Limit (time management & margins)
à Brands/Robison – topic to be determined

8. women’s bible studies fit in here. The Weekly lists 2 bible studies for our women to choose from.

9. baptism is also a part of discipleship – baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This afternoon I am going to baptize 5 people in the Molalla River at the church picnic.

10. baptism is important for a Christ follower. It takes your faith public. It’s your declaration that you have become a disciple of Jesus Christ & intend to be his follower. Talk to me or Kyle if you want to be baptized today – there’s still time!

11. 4th making disciples is done in the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8) – you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. We can’t make disciples apart from the power of God. Only God can convict a person of their sin, of their need for salvation. Only God can change or transform a human life. Making disciples will fail without the power of the Holy Spirit.

12. many of us feel guilty at this point. We are not giving witness, asking for a response, passing on the faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We lack courage or don’t care.

13. don’t let guilt get you down. Give it over to Jesus. Get rid of it. And let Jesus be your power, hope & courage. Pray. Take things 1 step at a time. And think about gardening.

14. my dad loves to garden. He takes care of his soil. He breaks it up, lets it breathe. He feeds it. He plants it. Waters it. Weeds it. Enjoys its company. But does he make his tomatoes or corn or cucumbers grow? No. He would be the 1st to tell you that all he does is prepare the garden for growth. God turns those seeds into plants & those plants into potatoes, onions & watermelon. I was home in August. The day I left dad went out to his garden & picked the first cantaloupes of the summer. I ate one of them – so sweet, juicy, and bursting with flavor!

15. we’re told the exact same thing about disciple-making in I Corinthians 3:5-9. I planted the seed. Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. God makes disciples but he gives us part of the process. We speak. We serve. We love. We listen. We give a Bible. We invite to a Christmas dessert. We bring to a youth event. We share our faith. And God brings the harvest!


Love God & love others
1. disciples of Jesus love God & love others. If you follow Christ you will be someone who passionately loves God & sincerely loves others. Love defines the live of a Christ-follower. Our primary way of making disciples is love.

2. love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

3. love your neighbor as yourself. This is the nitty-gritty of life. Loving our families, friends, church family, co-workers, even strangers we meet in the parking lot of Fred Meyers.

4. if we want to know how to love all we have to do is look at Jesus:
à John 3 – he loved Nicodemus, Pharisee, who came to see him at night so no one would see him – he was a coward
à John 4 – he loved the woman at the well who defines the term promiscuous – she was a moral wreck
à John 8 – he loved the woman caught in adultery – go & sin no more

5. I Corinthians 13:1-13. This kind of love combined with the power of the Holy Spirit will bring people to Christ & transform them into Christ-followers.

6. years ago we lived in an apartment on Territorial. Frank was our neighbor – hard to talk to, unfriendly, distant. I tried to build a relationship with him & his wife. Frank came down with cancer. I visited him. The barriers began to come down. I simply loved & cared for this man who was afraid of cancer & afraid to die. I prayed for him. I told him about Christ. I gave him a chance to make a decision. And one day he said “yes” to Jesus a few weeks before he died.

7. what the world needs now is love, sweet love…as the song goes.

3 commitments
1. Christ: renew your commitment to be a follower of Christ & spend time with him daily in prayer & Scripture. Choose Christ if you haven’t already & become 1 of his followers!

2. His Body: commit yourself to the Body of Christ by becoming a regular member of a Transformation group or a women’s bible study or a Common Ground class beyond Sunday morning. For community, growth & accountability.

3. World: commit yourself to the world we live in. Love it as Jesus did/does. Begin praying for 1 person you can love & share Christ with before Christmas.

Lord Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit help each one of us here today to invite people into this way of life called discipleship, following Jesus. Help us to do it in loving words & loving deeds. Thank you that you promise to be with us always, to the very end of the age. Amen.

Series: Tipping Points “From Darkness to Hope” (10)

(2 Corinthians)

1. today’s tipping point is the challenge of depression & the necessity of hope.

2. 1st a few statistics & facts about depression, the clinical side. Then the story side, specifically my story of depression. And thirdly, the Scripture side, the Scripture that carried me through my bout with darkness.

3. Oregon poet William Stafford has a book of poems entitled The Darkness Around Us in Deep, a perfect description of depression.

Clinical side
1. statistics:
à rates of depression have more than doubled in the last 50 years
à everyone will at some time in their life be affected by depression, their own or someone else’s
à 35 million Americans (more than 16% of the population) suffer from depression severe enough to warrant treatment at some time in their lives
à pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants in our country
à the rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% (Harvard University study)
à 30% of women are depressed & depression among men is rising
à 15% of depressed people will commit suicide (recent memorial service for Art Bremer – no one commits suicide in their right mind)
à depression results in more absenteeism from work than almost any other disorder & costs employers more than $51 billion per year in lost productivity (2004 Rand Corporation report)

2. what are the symptoms?
à sad, anxious, or "empty" mood
à feelings of hopelessness, pessimism
à feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness
à loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities that were once enjoyed, including sex
à decreased energy, fatigue, being "slowed down”
à difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
à insomnia, early-morning wakening, or oversleeping
à appetite and/or weight loss
à thoughts of death or suicide; suicide attempts

3. risk factors:
à family history of depression
à death or illness of a loved one or close friend
à stressful conflicts
à physical, sexual, emotional abuse
à major life events such as moving, graduating from college, changing jobs, divorce, becoming a new parent, retiring

4. specific causes include
à unresolved anger (anger turned inward)
à experience of grief or loss
à desire for gain not yet realized
à chemical imbalance
à un-confessed or hidden sin
à the powers of darkness, Satan

5. depression is not a personal weakness. We can be sick or injured not just physically but emotionally, mentally & spiritually as well. Depression is an injured, broken, sprained soul.

My story of depression
1. what I want to do now is share a few vignettes of my depression with you. Portraits, episodes of what happened to me. This is my sacred realism.

2. November 23, 2000, 3am. I was curled up in a fetal position on the family room floor, racked with fear, anxiety & a sense of being overwhelmed with life. Something inside of me broke. I saw a counselor the next afternoon & was told you’re exhausted & depressed; you need a break.

3. 3 days later I was driving up 205 to where I was going to ‘hole up’ for the next week in a small apartment in a gated community on the Columbia River.

4. an inner voice told me to stop at Christian Supply on Division to buy a book. I walked into the store not knowing what I was looking for. 15 minutes later I walked out with a 536 page commentary on 2 Corinthians. This book coupled with 2 Corinthians literally saved my life.

5. I slept for hours that first week like I hadn’t slept in weeks. I took 2-3 hour naps during the day. Sleep felt like cold water poured down the throat of a man dying of thirst.

6. initially I couldn’t imagine ever returning to ministry or CAC. Pastoring a church was simply too hard, too taxing & too impossible. My insides felt like they were cut up into spaghetti. My inner core felt shredded.

7. Mike Higgs came to see me. He took me out to lunch. He asked pointed questions with carefulness & compassion. I told him I wasn’t ready to go back to church. He told me I didn’t have to. That if I needed more time away the elders would understand (and they did – Norm Beck, John Champ, Lee Gellinger & Bob Cryder).

8. a few weeks later Tim Gilmer came to visit. It was one of those days where it hurt to be alive. Tim simply told me the story of his depression after his accident. He spoke words that I have never forgotten & passed onto others swamped by depression – your depression will pass. He spoke words of hope.

9. getting out of bed each morning required a Herculean effort. I hated mornings. Physically & emotionally I felt like a 500 lb weight lay on top of me. I needed a crane to lift me up out of bed & some mornings that crane was no where to be found. There were many nights where I hardly slept once I came back home.

10. I remember grocery shopping at Thriftway for our Christmas dinner. I had a list of about 15 items to pick up. I walked into the store & felt overwhelmed. I didn’t know how I was going to do this. I couldn’t remember where anything was at. I broke out into a sweat. The simplest, easiest tasks felt Mt Everest-like in their complexity.

11. silence, solitude, & sunlight were golden. I couldn’t get enough of them. I spent 5 days alone in a motel at Cannon Beach. And then 3 days at the Best Western in Wilsonville. I needed the silence & solitude to heal. I read my Bible, read books & filled journals with what seemed like miles of entries. I was desperately trying to figure out what happened to me, why & what bearing this would have on the rest of my life. I felt so lost.

12. when I was scraping the bottom I made a pilgrimage to see Clara Webber. I told her I was undone, finished. I told her that God was a million light years away & had forgotten I even existed. The deep darkness had totally engulfed me.

13. Clara looked scared. She knelt beside me & began to pray. I was so exhausted I fell asleep. When I woke up she was still kneeling & still praying. The next day the darkness began to lift.

Reflection
1. I’ve just described a black time in my life that I can hardly fashion words to describe – a nervous breakdown. Today, I look back at those times & the person I was is almost beyond my recognition. I feel bent inside as a result of my crash & like Jacob I walk with a limp.

2. what happened? I experienced a paradigm crisis. Before November of 2000 I worked & willed & prayed my way through every obstacle or challenge in my path. This had served me well through 15 years of ministry & most of my life.

3. and then I came up against 3 obstacles that I couldn’t work, will or pray my way through though. I gave it my best Olympian shot. 3 seriously conflicted relationships with people in our church that I loved. I couldn’t forge a peace no matter how hard I tried. And 5 days after 1 of these people came into my office & told me they were leaving the church, I collapsed into a fetal position on our family room floor. I felt like a huge failure. That I had let the church down & that God had let me down.

4. what I eventually discovered was that too much of what I did was about me. I wanted everyone to like me. I tried to keep everyone happy. I was a people pleaser disguised as a Matthew 5 peacemaker. Eventually God’s message got through – he alone is my audience of One. He alone is who I am to please. It’s impossible to keep everyone happy & everyone agreeing with my every thought, decision & move.

2 Corinthians
1. now comes the good stuff. Now comes hope.

2. 2 Corinthians is the most personal of Paul’s writings. He lets us see into his life & the struggles, fears, anxieties, & challenges that resided there. I began reading 2 Corinthians & Scott Hafemann’s commentary in my little hidden apartment on the Columbia River. And slowly but surely hope began to break through the dark clouds.

3. 4 passages were pivotal in this breakthrough.

1:8-11 – we despaired even of life
1. Paul writes of hardships, suffering, great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, we despaired even of life, we felt the sentence of death. He is not describing the yellow brick road of ministry. This is Paul’s sacred reality.

2. what comes next? This happened that we might now rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead, on him we have set our hope, he has delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us, he will continue to deliver us.

3. these are wonderful words of life and hope. I crawled into them & sat for weeks on end.

4:7-12 – treasure in jars of clay
1. more powerful words. I was a clay jar holding a treasure. The treasure of Christ – this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.

2. and how does this Christ in me get worked out in my life? Hard pressed but not crushed. Perplexed but not in despair. Persecuted but not abandoned. Struck down but not destroyed. Christ doesn’t always take me out of tough times but comes to me with persevering power while in the midst of them.

3. I tethered myself to this phrase – struck down but not destroyed. I felt struck down by my depression but it didn’t have to destroy me. And it wouldn’t as long as I turned to the treasure Christ in my cracked & chipped clay pot.

7:5-7 – God’s comfort
1. hope kept coming as I kept working my way through 2 Corinthians.

2. no rest, harassed at every turn, conflicts on the outside, fears within. I could have written these words. Conflicts on the outside, yes, with people I dearly loved. Fears on the inside, yes, a steady, unstoppable stream of them like I’d never experienced before.

3. but God who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. God comforts. The comfort comes from God through the coming of Titus to Paul.

4. God sent me some Titus’. Heather Hannah & Elizabeth were a safe haven of rest for me. Heather never gave up hope nor love nor support. Mike’s visit. Tim’s words. Norm & the elders were huge. Kelvin our DS & my pastor – he gave me Brennan Manning’s Ruthless Trust, another key book in my recovery. Rick my cousin. My parents. Heather’s family. Gary. Hope gradually come through these people minted in God’s mercy & love.

12:1-10 – power made perfect in weakness
1. I memorized 12:9-10. I prayed them. I meditated on them. I let them strengthen me, feed me, nourish me. They became the very personal, direct word of God to me.

God’s power is made perfect in my weakness
I boast in my weaknesses – Christ’s power rests on me
I delight in weaknesses insults hardships persecutions
difficulties
when I am weak then I am strong

3. my old paradigm (I can will, work, pray my way through anything) was transformed into a new paradigm (in my weaknesses & difficulties God’s grace & Christ’s power are all I need).

Last words
1. when we are depressed what we need more than anything else is hope. Hope that springs from the heart of God. Hope that finds us through Scripture. Hope that touches us through God’s people, family & friends.

2. this morning I can’t stress enough the importance of Scripture. God’s word worked to heal & comfort me in a manner nothing else could. I saw my medical doctor, I went on medication, I saw counselors for the next 2-3 years (3 different ones) & I had the best of family, friends & church.

3. but Scripture topped them all. 2 Corinthians was God’s conversation with me. The God who comforts & gives hope did not let me down.

4. whatever your struggles are this morning, God’s power & God’s hope are sufficient. 2 Corinthians reminds us that God did not so much deliver Paul out of his difficult circumstances as much as he strengthened & en-hoped him from within them.

5. as we come to the celebration of communion this morning, God is able. God gives hope. God gives power. God heals. God’s grace is sufficient for our weakness.

Tipping Points: “What Does Work Have to Do With Jesus?” (9)

Genesis 1-3; Colossians 3:22-4:1

1. when I was 14, 15 years old I spent my summers moving irrigation pipe on an alfalfa farm owned by Basil Aldecoa. He was Basque, from Spain, worked smart & hard, amassed 2 large farms & thousands of acres & once was written up in National Geographic.

2. work started at 7am. 33 sections to each quarter mile long irrigation line. After the alfalfa was cut I could move a line in 20-25 minutes. Before cutting, when the alfalfa was 2-3 feet high, it took up to 45 minutes. $1.25 a line, 8 each morning, $10 a morning, 7 days a week. That was good money back then. Gas was 24 cents a gallon. I learned to work on Basil Aldecoa’s farm.

3. tomorrow is Labor Day. A day to recognize the value of our work. A day to rest. A day to be thankful. A day to eat barbecued hamburgers.

4. most of us spend the largest portion of our waking hours each week working – 30,40,50,60 hours. Work is a major part of our lives.

5. the Tipping Point I want to talk about today is – the challenge of work & the necessity of doing it God’s way. What does our work have to do with Jesus?

6. I have 4 points I want to share with you:
- God is a worker
- By virtue of creation we are workers
- By virtue of the fall we work under imperfect conditions
- God has set kingdom expectations for our work

7. I hope you leave today with a renewed sense of excitement & vision for what your job, work can become.

God is a worker (Genesis 2:2
1. part of God’s nature is that he is a worker. He created, worked for 6 days. God is a worker!

2. and his work continues. Colossians 1 tells us that in Christ all things hold together. Hebrews 1:3 says of Christ, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

3. it is Christ who keeps the world running, spinning, rotating in sync. Rain & sun. Heat & cold. Day & night. Fall, winter, spring, summer. People & things, animals & atoms all working together in vibrant harmonies. Christ holds his creation together, sustains his creation.

4. and as the working God he saw the need for rest. 6 days of work, 1 day of rest. Sabbath rest which was Tipping Point #3.

by virtue of creation we are workers (Genesis 1:26-27)
1. part of God’s nature is work. And as people made in his image & likeness part of our nature is work. To be a human made in God’s likeness is to be a worker.

2. in the church we talk a lot about being transformed, changed to become more more like Christ. Part of that change & transformation entails our work. The marketplace is just as important to God as this place of worship.

3. we often overlook or forget the 1st commission given us by God – be fruitful & increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Genesis 1:28).

4. the job description God-given to each one of us is this – subdue the earth; rule over every living creature. God has given creation to us. We are to be stewards of it – the fish of the sea & the birds of the air & the very ground we live & walk upon.

5. our stewardship of creation is for the sake of God whose earth it is. To be God-like is to be a caretaker of his creation. This is really the origin of work. We are to live & sustain our lives from the fruit of God’s
Creation.

6. business, commerce, the economy arise from this. The selling & buying of goods & services in order to live, to survive & to prosper.

7. work is honorable in the eyes of God. Work is the very first thing we are called to in creation. Work is a central part of our God-given identity & DNA.

8. as a sidebar, this is why unemployment is such a curse to our society. When women & men can’t find work, they feel less than human, incomplete, fragmented. Why? Because God created us to flourish by means of labor.

by virtue of the fall we work under imperfect conditions (Genesis 3:17-19)
1. Genesis 3 changes everything, including work. God’s perfect creation is spoiled. Every single part of it. Not just the human part but the inanimate part as well.
2. the ground is cursed. Work becomes toilsome. Thorns & thistles are symbols of a fragmented, broken, fallen creation. Food comes by sweat.

3. as if to say, before the fall work was not toilsome. Thorns & thistles were non-existent. Work produced joy & fulfillment not sweat & pain.

4. don’t miss this – work was front & center in God’s original creation. It predates the fall rather than being a result of the fall.

5. Romans 8:18-21 comes into play at this point – the fall has subjected creation to frustration. Creation is waiting to be liberated from its bondage to decay. Creation is waiting to be brought into the glorious freedom that we as the children of God will experience.

6. here we see the unity that exists in God’s eyes between his animate & inanimate creation. Rocks, hills, trees, stars & suns are just as eager as we are to be liberated from sin & restored to our Genesis 1-2 Eden-like existence.

7. this is unmistakable proof of God’s love & value for his material creation. Mt. Hood, Detroit Lake, Cannon Beach. Coho salmon, rainbow trout, salt water catfish (Guinea). Weeping Willow, Red Leaf Maple, Giant Sequoia trees. Brown bears, white-tail deer, Ricky Mountain Goat. Dahlias, tulips, Dutch iris. Lodge pole pin, California Redwood, western hemlock. I could go on & on – all created by God; all affected by humanity’s fall into sin; all waiting the final day of redemption.

8. sidebar – MSN.com led their news stories this morning with this. Loreto, Italy – Pope Benedict, leading the Catholic Church’s first ‘eco-friendly’ youth rally, on Sunday told up to half a million people that world leaders must make courageous decisions to save the planet before it’s too late. A decisive yet is needed in decisions to safeguard creation as well as a strong commitment to reverse tendencies that risk leading to irreversible situations of degradation. Courageous choices that can Closer to home, the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church in Boise is sponsoring a conference in 3 weeks: tending the garden: rediscovering the church’s responsibility to lead by example in creation care. The environment is important because God makes it important. We as evangelicals have been slow to realize this. It’s time to play catch-up!


God has set kingdom expectations for our work (Colossians 3:22-4:1)
1. God is a worker. By virtue of creation we are workers.
By virtue of the fall we work under imperfect conditions
God has set kingdom expectations for our work.

2. when our work is carried out according to the values of the kingdom of God, the workplace experiences the in-breaking of God’s reign. We fulfill the Lord’s Prayer – thy kingdom come, thy will be done – as we live & work by the values of God’s kingdom = fairness, justice, compassion, truth-keeping, selfless love, peace-making & servanthood.

3. Paul’s word to slaves & masters is directly applicable to each one of us in our jobs. To slaves –
à obey masters in everything
à work with sincerity of heart
à reverence for the Lord
à we serve the Lord through our work

4. to masters –
à provide workers with what is right & fair
à are accountable to God

5. our great need is the clear-sightedness to see Jesus & to set him before us in our work. For teachers to teach, carpenters to build, doctors to doctor, accountants to audit books, farmers to farm & secretaries to type letters AS IF THEY WERE ACTUALLY SERVING JESUS CHRIST because they are!

6. we not only offer our worship to God on Sundays, but our jobs to God Monday through Saturday. We not only serve God in the context of the church, we serve him in the context of our jobs. In fact, the workplace just might be the venue of our greatest transformation as the people of God. It’s fairly easy to live out our faith here at church; but what about at work? Jesus desires to be Lord of ALL OF OUR LIVES not just our Sunday, faith-keeping lives.

Wrap-up
1. God is a worker
By virtue of creation we are workers
By virtue of the fall we work under imperfect conditions
God has set Kingdom expectations for our work

2. I want to close in prayer. I want to help me. I want many of you to simply pray out I thank God for my job of being an electrician, a school teacher, clerk, a manager….

3. we are a blessed people!