Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Nicholas Kristof is a journalist for the New York Times. A few months ago he wrote an article which posed the question . . . Which of these two fictitious people would you rather be? Richard, a 36 yr. old white commodities trader. He is healthy and lives in Hawaii. His job is stressful but he is wealthy enough to take amazing vacations. He is very handsome. He is not married but he dates gorgeous women. He is free to indulge in his passions of running, reading and writing. He is currently composing a poem about the Haiti earthquake. Or would you rather be Lorna who is a 64 year African American woman. She lives in the opposite of Hawaii. She is unattractive. She is on kidney dialysis, but that does not impede her social life or babysitting with her grandchildren. She is a retired school assistant, very close to her 67 yr. old husband, and is much respected in their church for directing music ministries. A few months ago she organized a church drive to raise $10K for Haiti. So three questions: Which of these two would our society put forward as an example of the good life? Or to rephrase the question: Which one would companies want to use as a spokesperson for them to say, “If you buy our product, you can be like Richard or Lorna? Next question: Which one is more likely to be happy? There are all kinds of research on this. But the bottom line of current research is that Lorna will most likely live longer, be happier, have more friends, experience more purpose, and nurse fewer regrets than Richard. But that’s not what matters most: One more question, which person is more like God . . . Richard or Lorna?

We are going to begin talking about the character of God today because just like Richard and Lorna, God is a certain kind of person with a certain kind of character, and our calling, no matter what our occupation or our pre-occupation is, is to be imitators of God. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest, how would you rate God on compassion? How compassionate is God? We all have different experiences we are going through right now and those experiences might cloud our opinion. So listen to what the Bible says because we don’t have to guess or be unsure of God’s character. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him for He knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:14

Check this out: A woman finds out she is going to have a baby. Fast forward about 7.5 months ahead and the baby is born. It’s a little boy. She and her husband are thrilled. They tell their friends. They thank God. But the gradually begin to discern that things aren’t quite right. Their little baby boy doesn’t respond to normal visual cues and doesn’t seem to recognize their appearance. Eventually they realize their baby boy is blind. Their hearts drop. He has no other children to play with. He is not going to get married or hold a job. They worry what will happen to him when they die. He has to beg for a living. At first people notice him but as the days turn into weeks into months into years he fades into the scenery like a tree. Nobody really sees him but he is there. Then one day a group of religious people are walking past him, and he hears them talking about him. A couple of them said to the teacher, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" We find this story in John 9.

Jesus, the rabbi, responds, Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” So Jesus is saying you are asking the wrong question. You are looking for someone to blame. We do that when there is suffering, don’t we. Something tragic happens and we try to fix blame on to someone or something. A number of us are great at doing this to ourselves. But what we don’t need to stick blame on someone or something but instead look at what God can do “with one drop of grace at a time.” Some of us might recall this story. Jesus then spits on the ground making a little mud, puts it on the man’s eyes and tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. And the man born blind goes home seeing. And people are going, is this the guy who blended in on Downer and Kenwood? Some said, yes. It has to be. Other said, it might be, but it is hard to say. The guys just looks different standing up. Others said, No, it’s not him. And the formally blind man now able to put faces with voices says to them. It’s me! It’s me! This was a fantastic day. There was rejoicing all over the place. Everyone was happy! Right? Well, not so much.

The account goes on, “Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.” And according to one of the hundreds of Pharisaical laws healing was prohibited on the Sabbath. So the Pharisees grill the man born blind. What do you have to say about this Jesus guy? The man reflects. He must be a prophet. The Pharisees don’t like the man’s answer so they go to his parents. Is this your son, the demand. How come he can see now? John 9:20f We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. 21But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." They are afraid of getting in trouble. So they throw their newly seeing son under the Badger Coach. So the Pharisees go back to him. Tell us what happened. We know that Jesus is a sinner. And the man says, whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" People can argue about religion and they often do. But it is hard to argue a story. The man has courage and as he simply utters the truth. Later Jesus comes back to him and says, “Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" 36"Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." 37Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you." 38Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.

When the disciples looked at this guy, they see an interesting theological discussion that makes them feel superior. When his neighbors look at him they see an eyesore. When the Pharisees look at him, they see a Sabbath rule broken. When Jesus sees him, he sees a child of God who has suffered intensely and who could only be redeemed by the power of God to a level of spiritual insight and courage that would shock the world.

One more account from Scripture: “A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, (because a lot of religious experts were not willing) you can make me clean." 3Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" (Matthew 8:1-3) Leprosy was a dreaded and fearful disease. Worse than our present day AIDS. Today, btw, leprosy is known as Hansen’s disease. Leprosy was so feared at the time that at the first blemish on your skin, you would have to rip your clothes, mess up your hair, move outside the community, and if you saw anyone who was not a leper, you would have to yell out when they were far away from you: UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! And the people would get it that they were to stay away from you. It was against the law for a person who had leprosy to touch anybody who was not leprous. Any rabbi knew this. The stigma with leprosy was huge and painful. With leprosy a person was not just sick they were unclean. And it didn’t just have to be healed it had to be cleansed. You understand that the power of at touch is ginormous. When somebody puts their arms around you, when they give you a hug, it is literally life-giving. And Jesus wants this leper to remember his touch. So he does what nobody else would do. The very last thing that happens to this guy before he is healed is that Jesus touches his uncleanness. Jesus touches the untouchable. You see God’s character is filled with compassion one drop of grace at a time.

Oddly enough in the mid 100’s AD and the mid 200’s AD, it was through sickness an suffering and the Christian’s response to it that became a major part of how the movement of Jesus Christ transformed the Roman Empire. In both of these centuries there were major epidemics in the Roman Empire wiping out between a quarter and a third of the population. Put that in our day, in our country and that would mean somewhere between 75 million and 100 million people died because of an epidemic that couldn’t be stopped. Imagine the fear and hysteria in our swine flu world. The Roman historian Dionysius says during this time: people would push the sick away. They ran away from their loved ones, spouses, children. Throwing them into roads before they were dead and treating unburied corpses like dirt, hoping to avert disease.

But in the middle of all this is a little community of Christians who remembered that Jesus cared for the sick. Who would touch lepers. And they would take people in, even people who were not a part of their community, even people who didn’t believe like them. They would care for the sick and dying, even at the cost of their own lives. The revolutionary aspect of Christianity is that movement of people who lived with Jesus found themselves doing what Jesus did.

I think there are a lot of us who want to be like a drop of water and making a difference for God. Nobody can do everything but everybody can do something. We don’t need guilt or stats to motivate us. Lorna is simply a good example for us to follow and so are these. Over spring break this past year some of our partners took the time to be a drop of water by building homes in the south. This summer our partners are involved in camps and mission trips. But here’s the thing you don’t have to go away from home to make a ripple. Where are you at? Where do you spend most of your time? What do you like to do? Try serving in some way and see if it won’t resonate in your heart. You can make a difference one drop at a time. Your drop might even be a splash!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

I don’t think it is a anything new or shocking to anyone here that we live in morally relativistic society. Moral relativism is the dominant value. The majority of people do not like the concept of absolute truth. So I’m going to ask you a question and if your answer is yes just simply raise your hand. Now don’t look around and see what everyone else is doing. I am just asking for your opinion. And God knows whether you are giving me your opinion or someone else’s. So here is the question: Is toleration a good thing? It’s really a bad question isn’t it. Because if by toleration you mean that we are to carry each other’s burdens and to love one another like Jesus did, then that is a good thing. Jesus didn’t necessarily approve of people’s behavior but he saw them as people of high value. But if the working definition of toleration is that anything goes and no one has a right to say anything against something then it is bad. Our world doesn’t like the concept of absolute truth. But still there are some expectations of truth. For example in the medical field if you or I or loved is to go in for heart bypass surgery we certainly are expecting that the surgeon will know the difference between an artery and vein. That the surgeon will know that the arteries and veins all carry blood but there is a big difference between the two. When we go to the pharmacy we expect that the pharmacist will give us our medication and not mix it with some pills that look really close to the same. When we go to the grocery store we expect the weight of the meat to be accurate. When we got to the gas station to buy gas we presume that we are actually getting a gallon of gas for the price and not .997 gallons. In track and field, if you are a man and want to run the marathon in the Olympics there is a qualifying standard of 2:19 flat. Not 2:19:01. You could win your countries marathon, be the national champion but unless you have run a 2:19 flat or better you are not in the Olympics. Our culture has flipped a good word “tolerance,” and made it to mean anything goes. People set their own rules. In our day there is no such thing as boundaries because there are no absolutes. And I want you to know that just because the majority of people don’t accept something as true doesn’t make it any less true. If the majority voting on discounting the law of gravity, gravity wouldn’t cease. Because of the lack of absolutes our society is swaying back and forth and is going to hell in a hand basket.

So how do we fix our culture? How do we fix them out there? Well it begins by fixing us in here. We as individuals must embrace God’s truth instead of keeping it at a distance. We must live by God’s standards the way Jesus did. And just how do we do that? Today, I want to take us into the Bible into the true life stories of four guys in the book of Daniel. They are: Daniel. Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. And these three lived in a world much like our own, an anything goes, “Wild on Babylon.” Daniel 1:3-5 Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility- 4 young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king's palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. 5 The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king's service. They were recruited to go to the Harvard of their day. They were the lottery pick of the smart people. It was to be a 3 yr period where they would become indoctrinated and en-culturated into Babylon. Now each of the four had a portion of God’s name in their name so that every time they heard their name they had an opportunity to remember whose and who they were. But King Nebuchadnezzar changes their names to Beltashazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego as if to say “whose your daddy now?” That’s how anti the true God this culture was. They were being asked to be subjected to pagan decadence and just conform to the culture, check this out: “because everyone is doing it.”

Daniel 1:8 But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. People of conviction draw a line in their heart ahead of time, to honor the deepest value and connections of God. That’s point one. People of conviction draw a line in their heart ahead of time, to honor the deepest value and connections of God. Now we don’t know exactly what it was that the four were asked to eat that was going to defile them but they were people of conviction. But Daniel decided to draw a line in the little things before the big things would come and some big test would come. People of conviction draw a line in their hearts a head of time. That means that when you get to the party and some one hands you a joint or a rock or crank you already now you are not taking it. When that hot babe and some ripped guy shows up you already know what you are going to do and what you are not going to do. It means that when a business deals that needs just a little falsification to become final you already know you are going to live honestly before God who sees all things and others who see only some things. It means that when you are in crowd of people and they are starting to talk about some one who isn’t there you already know what you are going to do. What decisions are you facing now? We must honor God in our everything goes world. We need to draw a line in our hearts that will not allow us to even consider crossing over into dishonesty and deceitfulness. We may have made some mistakes in the past but now, starting today we are drawing the line in our hearts to keep Godly values.

Now King Nebuchadnezzar had a huge ego. In chapter 3 he makes this 90 foot statue of gold and makes this narcissistic law that says as soon as anyone hears music they are to bow down and worship before the statute and anyone who doesn’t will be thrown into the fiery furnace. Daniel 3:8 At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews. 9 They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, "O king, live forever! 10 You have issued a decree, O king, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, 11 and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace. 12 But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, O king. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up." The homegrown scholars, the people of the hood, were jealous of these foreigners and wanted their revenge. King just so you know these guys you have brought in from the other country are intolerant of your wishes and law. Today if you and I have convictions like absolute truth we become the object of intolerance. To have absolute truth today is to be narrow minded, intolerant, homophobic, unloving, hateful, old fashioned, out of touch. Now keep in mind that truth is not based on my opinion, my feelings, or majority vote. Truth is anchored to a person, a person named Jesus. John 14:6 I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And he backed it up by rising from the dead. It would be hateful not to tell people the truth. Imagine some campers were lost out in the woods. It is dusk. They all know they need to go north. They get into a disagreement about which way is north. Does the camper with the compass keep his mouth shut out of fear of seeming to be arrogant or intolerant? He has the compass and the need of survival leads him to speak. There is a north you know. God’s Word , his standards, his boundaries are north.

People with conviction courageously speak the truth in love, not obnoxiously but respectfully. Colossians 4:5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 1 Peter 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. In another passage Jesus asks us to speak the truth in love. People with conviction courageously speak the truth in love, not obnoxiously but respectfully.

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are people of conviction so the music sounds and there is not a snowball’s chance in hell they are bowing down to worship this statute thing. And the hometown scholars run off to the king and tattle. And King N. is royally ticked off. He brings the three in. What don’t you get? Big statue - 90 feet tall. I know you can see it. Loud music, I know you can hear it. And then you bow down and worship. Got it. I’m going to give you another chance, even though I shouldn’t but you got it right. Big statue. Loud music. Worship. But the three say, King that is an awesome statue. I don’t know who made it but the artistry is amazing. The music - it’s loud we like the beat. In fact, it’s on our I-pods already. But the worship thing, our hearts are reserved for the true God. Furious King N. calls for the furnace to be stoked seven times hotter than normal. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are bound by the soldiers and tossed into the furnace. The furnace is so consuming hot that the soldiers who throw them have their lungs melt and they die on the spot. King N. looks from a distance into the furnace and this is what he sees:

(Daniel 3:24-26) 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?" They replied, "Certainly, O king." 25 He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods." 26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, "Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!" So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego step out of the fire. They were not singed. Have you ever smelled burned hair. It is horrific. That‘s why I‘m like this. Actually there is a story there but we aren‘t going there right now. They didn‘t have blisters. Their skin wasn‘t charred or falling off. They weren‘t in horrific pain. They didn‘t even smell like smoke. This is miraculous. This is God stuff. The is from the one who is the truth. This is from the one who is in the furnace with them.

People of conviction trust that God’s truth will prevail in the end. That’s point three. People of conviction trust that God’s truth will prevail in the end. People of conviction don’t try to fight the whole battle, don’t have the answer to every question, don’t get obnoxious but are confident that God will take care of it. There are some tough things that happen in our world and that happen to us. And I don’t mean to make light of any of those things or of anybody’s pain but in the end God will prevail. This is what the three said before they were thrown into the furnace because they knew that in the end God would prevail. Daniel 3:17,18 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." God is the inventor of chlorophyl, photosynthesis, DNA and tons of other things we haven’t even found out about yet. He is the one who put the capacity to love and feel and laugh in our hearts. He is the one who gives the power to forgive, conquer death. The King we serve is able to save and people of conviction live like that. Even if he doesn’t save us from this particular situation, he will save us in the end. There is high anxiety in our culture because we aren’t anchored to anything, not sure about anything, but when you are sure about the truth you have conviction, and the ability to live in a way like you have never lived before. God is able to deliver me but if he doesn’t it is because he has a better plan.

I’ll be honest, I need our help. I sometimes forget that God is going to prevail and try to take matters into my own hands. And I think there are a lot of us who are like that. Let’s be there to encourage each other with the truth. Let’s draw a line in our heart ahead of time so that we don’t disconnect ourselves from God and his values. Let’s speak the truth courageously and in love. And remember, remember, even when it doesn’t look good (remember Good Friday) that in the end God will prevail. I pray that you and I will anchor ourselves in the truth of the person and word of Jesus who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Let’s wrap this message up by singing My Hope is Built on Nothing Less

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Most people love stories. Some won’t admit but they still watch tv shows that are really stories. Jesus told a lot of stories. One of the stories he told 2K ago is recorded for us in Luke 14. The setting for the story was at a church leader, called a Pharisee’s, house. Pharisees were religious, pious, and proud of following rules and regulations. And they primarily did it in front of other so they could seen and esteemed wearing their Niemann Marcus gowns and flashing their season tickets to the box seats in the synagogue. And when they gave, they gave out of their abundance again in front of the people so that all could be reminded that they were better than the regular people. The Pharisee invited other Pharisees and Jesus to his home for a dinner party. In those days the table arrangement was in a U shape. The host would sit in the middle and the distinguished guests would sit right next to him, the most distinguished on his right and then the next on his left. The others sat down in descending order of importance. So Jesus goes to the party and as he arrives people are in a mad scramble for the seats of honor. They want to be next to the host in the top spots. And Jesus tells them this: (Luke 14:8-14) 8"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. 11For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

How embarrassing would that be? You get there early to the party and set up shop with your name tag, drink. You drape your coat over the chair and as you sit down you wave to the regular people with a smile. And then the host comes says, “Excuse me. You are in someone else’s place. I’m going to have to ask you to move.” and by now all the other seats are taken except the very last seat farthest way from the host. And now you have to get up with your coat draped over your forearm as you carry your drink head down to the last seat. That would suck.

Jesus says, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.” Reminds me of another saying: Whoever gets too big for his britches will eventually be exposed in the end. Why does Jesus make such a big deal about this pride issue? Why at this party? What in so many places in Scripture too. Check out: Proverbs 16:5 The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished. And how about this: James 4:6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Why does God feel so strongly about pride, arrogance, and ego? Why are we constantly being called to the contrast of pride, to humility?

God knows how much damage pride is doing in business, political, education, family, friendship and even church arenas and the damage it does to souls everyday. Let me take a little survey to show how pride ruins relationships. How many of us love to be around people with big heads? How many us would just love to go the Brewer game or to Summerfest his coming weekend with a conceited jerk? Pride ruins relationships. And nobody wants to humble themselves, admit they are wrong, ask for forgiveness or extend forgiveness. Proverbs 13:10 says, “Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.” Business relationships that were solid like a rock are now a heap of pebbles. Marriages which were united in love have been separated by the detonation of pride. Some parents never admit that they are wrong and children grow up devastated all because of pride. People struggle with finances, morals. Addictions, sin and they are too prideful to open up and say, I’m in over my head and I need help.

And elderly couple became friends in the nursing home. The man became infatuated with the women and one evening asked her to marry him. She quickly responded yes. The next morning the man wakes up and remembers asking her but can’t remember her answer. So he sheepishly seeks her out and says, “Last night I asked you to marry me but I can’t remember your answer.” She was delighted. She said, “This morning when I woke up I knew I had said yes but I couldn’t remember who asked me.”

To acknowledge short comings, to say I goofed, isn’t easy. But those who can humble themselves at work, marriage, with the kids can repair so much damage. Some of us are living in very fractured relationships right now. And they are going to stay that way until one or both of us humble ourselves. When a person is humble they don’t have to be right all of the time. It is easier to handle criticism, to say I’m sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me. Relationships excel in humility and crash in pride.

Another reason why Jesus makes such a big deal with pride is because pride can walk right by real people with real needs. I see pride every time I look in the mirror. And if I ignore it, you and others will know when I do because then I walk right by people with needs, pains, and problems because I am focused on my agenda, dreams, plans, schedule, calendar. Pride walks right by people with real needs, doesn’t have time for others. Philippians 2:3 says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Pride is a roadblock to happiness in so many of our lives. Everybody wants to be happy. Many are in a frantic search for happiness and there is no shortage of advice on how to be happy. I typed in How to Be Happy on Amazon.com and it came up with over 1500 books. There has never been more advice on happiness. So why aren’t more people happy, colleagues at work, spouse, kids, you, me? Happiness in counterintuitive. We think it is found in external circumstances. Like if the Brewers win we are happy. If the car repair bill is less expensive than we thought we are happy. But Jesus teaches happiness is determined by what is happening within us. The first step to happiness is humility: Matthew 5:3 says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed or happy. To be in poor in spirit doesn’t mean that we are down in the dumps. It means that we recognize who we really are. To recognize our shortcomings, misbehaviors, moral slip ups, failures and sin and all of this in the presence of a holy, righteous, pure and loving God. The engineers at Boeing aren’t impressed with our paper airplanes. We don’t make a shot on the playground and look Kobe Bryant in the eye and says, “I got game.” So we certainly can’t boast about how good we are in the presence of the holy God. People poor in spirit recognize that we don’t’ measure up to God’s standard of holiness and that’s humility. I’m destitute, overdrawn, bankrupt and I can never repay. I need God who can lift me up out this situation who can meet me in this condition. Jesus is saying, Happy are those who acknowledge I need God because God gives grace to the humble. The kingdom of heaven belongs to those who trust that they don’t deserve it.

So my question for me and you is: Is pride in the way between us and God? Is pride in the way of our happiness? Do you want to know how to break the back of pride? Do want to know how to be humble in a me first world? Then you we are going to have to take a chance and acknowledge who I really am before God and to other people. Admit that we are utterly dependent on God to get me out of this hole so deep no oil company can drill down far enough to get me out. James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Now I know this is hard for us to do especially because deep down we like to think that we have made ourselves and deserve all that we have. I worked for it or I made some really good decisions right?

A CEO at a mega corporation and his wife were driving when they needed to pull the Mercedes in for gas. The CEO of course pulled the car up to the full service side and waited for the attendant to come out. As the attendant comes out of the gas station the CEO’s wife gets out of the car to go buy a cappuccino. As she does she greets the attendant and they actually end up talking for a while before she goes and gets her drink. When she gets back in the car her husband says condescendingly, “that was a nice conversation I bet.” His wife said, “Oh, I know him. I used to date him.” Her CEO husband responds, “I bet I know what you are thinking. You are thinking how lucky I am to have married my husband who is a CEO instead of man who is a gas station attendant.” “No,” she said, “I’m thinking that if I would have married him he would have been the CEO and you would have been the gas station attendant.”

Here’s the deal. None of us would be anything without God who has made us. None of us who be anything without God who gave us our gifts and abilities. None of us who be anything without God who gave us opportunities. None of us who be anything without God who gave us his only Son to die for us.

Second thing: Get outside of yourself and serve someone. Luke 14:12-14 "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." Don’t invite the rich neighbors, invite the poor, the cripple, the lame etc., Humble people get outside of themselves and serve others. Serve people who can’t serve you back because they don’t have the means or the ability. Matthew 23:11 (The Message) Do you want to stand out? Then step down.” Take a chance on humility in a Me world. Jesus did.

Prayer

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Something is really, really wrong with our world. Something is wrong basically and fundamentally with our world. It is it because we don’t know enough. I don’t think so. I mean we have more accumulated knowledge than even before. Is it because scientific progress isn’t up to par? I don’t think so. Over the past few decades our scientific development can be nothing but amazing. Our scientific expertise has allowed us to chart super highways through the expanse of the skies. To find the real cause of the ill in the world, we must turn to the heart and soul of people. In fact, we can actually narrow it down from there. The problem with the world is not so much out there as the problem is right here in my heart and in yours. The problem is that we have let our scientific and materialistic advances far out pace the most important relationship of all, our relationship with God. The problem isn’t an atomic bomb that can kill thousands but the atomic bomb of our hearts that can come up with all kinds of hatred.

CS Lewis in poem writes:

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am a mercenary and self seeking through and through; I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn. Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside of my proper skin; I talk of love - a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek - But self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Martin Luther King Jr, said, “To go forward we are going to have to go backward and reclaim Christian values that we have left behind. Like the dignity of all people, every person has worth and is made in the image of God. Now I want you to know the more we know the real Jesus the more loving and compassionate we become. This is how God sees people. Let’s read it together: Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” I was blessed to grow up in El Paso, TX. At the time, I didn’t think so. But now I know so. El Paso was about 80% Latino, 5% African American and 15% cracker. It was kind of like this big bag of gum balls. All the colors in one community. El Paso, like all places had people who were prejudice. I would routinely here things like: “Dumb Latinos, Dumb Blacks and Dumb Whites.” (The names of course were a lot worse.) The cool thing for me was I got to confront those lies with the truth of Scripture like in the passage we read before and I also got to experience the fallacy of those comments just sitting in my classes. Because in my classes were not only dumb Latinos, Blacks and Whites but also brilliant Latinos, Blacks and Whites. I had a friend in high school who was African American and the first two times he came over to the house, he would just yell out my name from his bike out in the street. Somewhere along the way he had been taught, told, perceived that he was not allowed to go into a white person’s home. Now, my friend was inferior, but it wasn’t because of his color. It was because of his basketball skills while they were good, were not good enough.

I know we all have a sinful nature that jacks us all up in so many different ways. But is prejudice a natural thing? Last week I was playing tennis at Lake Park. Kids of all colors were play together at the playground without a clue that they are “supposed to hate each other and not trust each other.” Prejudice is learned. It is an acquired thing. We have to be taught to hate and fear and mistrust. Taught to not trust an different shape eye or a different color skin. James 3:9,10 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 1 John 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. Keep in mind those are God’s words not mine. There is no wiggle room or yeah buts. That’s the deal. We hate someone we can’t love God.

Jesus is serious about reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Jesus was dead serious about this whole reconciliation thing. And the only hope for reconciliation and justice in this hate filled world is when each one of us enters into a vibrant, daily, love relationship with Jesus. When we are made into new people, then we will be able to reach out with a love we have not previously known before and we will be able to have the compassion and the courage to build bridges with each other just as Christ did for us. E V Hill said, “We can’t legislate brotherhood. Don’t put your trust in the left wing or the right wing when the bird is dead. The system that keeps us locked into our roles can only change by people who are changed on the inside. Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

As you and I flip through the pages of the New testament we find that Jesus broke down racial and gender bias’. He went places where no one had gone before and he would take people with him. He broke down man made rules of the day and expressed the heart of God to everyone and they would kill him for it. Jesus didn’t just have the right attitude and the proper perspective, he also did the right thing. Jesus was a friend to people who had no friends. Compassion flowed form his heart. And he rolled up his sleeves and got involved with people.

Compassion is a churning in our gut that will not let us rest until we do something. Maybe there is a churning in your gut when you see hungry children, AIDS orphans, refuge compounds, homeless people, cancer patients and their families, a kid at school who gets made fun of, or when you see social injustice. It is a churning that says to you, “that is not right, and I must make it right.” Compassion gets into our feet leading us. Compassion gets into our hands providing service. Compassion gets into our pocketbooks leading us to support. And we take a chance. Recognize that compassion always involves taking a chance and a reach. Reconciliation was not just a nice concept in the mind of Jesus. He approached the unapproachable. He touched the untouchable, he infected the infected. Jesus knew the power of coming next to someone and touching them. Jesus touched the leper who was labeled as unclean. But compassion got churning in the heart of Jesus and he had to take a chance to reach and touch this guy. And when he touched him, the healing began. Can you imagine the leper? When was the last time he felt a touch? The last time he hugged a kid? He kissed his wife? Someone even bumped into him? Jesus knew before he needed to be healed, he needed to be touched. Article from paper about Marquette graduate in Honduras who saw children eating rotten food from the dumpsters and be compelled to touch them, love them, and build a cafeteria for them (June 9, 2010 Milw. JS).

Compassion says everyone needs to be cared for and touched. You realize, right, that you and I have never locked eyes with anyone who doesn’t dearly matter to God. Every society has their untouchable, their list of the last five they would invite to dinner. So I ask you and me: Who is in our last five? Why are they untouchable? Is it because of their race, their social standing, education, maybe they dress really weird or have like 50 too many tattoos or piercing, is their past or present lifestyle, or perhaps they have hurt us in the past. Compassion always takes a chance and makes a reach and that is where healing begins. Galatians 6:2 says, Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. And Galatians 5:6 says, The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Compassion involves taking a chance and making a reach. It has been said that, “We live on a contaminated planet. It is contaminated on every level. It should be quarantined from God. No reasonable God go near it with a ten foot pole but Jesus is no reasonable God. He became a human being and took our uncleanness but instead of being infected by the world, he infected the world with his holiness and perfection. It is still spreading. My challenge for us is simply this: to be like Jesus and to take a chance on compassion!

Prayer.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to take a couple of days to kinda recharge, to relax and slow down! Jacky and I went to one of those late morning breakfasts. It was really cool. Have you had a chance to regroup since summer started or are you still playing bop it. (play bop it game with someone) And you know the further you go in this game the faster it goes. Sometimes our lives are like bop it. They go faster and faster. Twisting, spinning, pulling, pushing. And then our batteries run down and we are not much fun. Question: Got stress?

As we start the summer of 2010 we live in a time of extreme tension. The Lake Front had to be closed down a couple of weekends ago as people spilled out into the streets fighting. Our neighborhood continues to have armed robberies, property is damaged or stolen. The stock market is back to jerking us around with some serious rollercoaster rides. We have the oil spill in the Gulf. The hurricane forecast is for a lot of hurricanes. The war wages in Afghanistan. The World Cup Soccer Tournament is set to begin this coming week in South Africa. Anybody besides me a little on edge wondering how South Africa is going to protect the world’s athletes.

I have heard it said any number of times: Everyone just wants peace. But that’s not true. Al Qaeda doesn’t want peace. The drug lords in Mexico don’t want peace. Some people are just bent on causing chaos. Some of these are in family settings, some are in neighborhoods, some in political arena and some in the religious sphere. There is tension inside our own hearts called anxiety. Anxiety means to be pulled in 100 different directions. For a lot of us we have become pretty good at hiding the anxiety. We look calm on the outside but in we are really being stretched. I heard a report this past week that said that the US CDC estimates that 50% of the death between ages 1 and 65 are directly related to stress. Proverbs 12:25 An anxious heart weighs a man down. Anxiety keeps us from living freely. Anxiety keeps us from being productive and sane.

Let’s look at some things that are make most of us anxious.

1. Unexpected trouble - We get blind sided. We never saw it coming. A week ago Friday, a teenager at one of my former congregations was killed in an ATV accident. Things like this put us in a tail spin of stress. Our faith gets tested at times of unexpected trouble. James 1:22Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Unexpected trouble can really rock our lives around but what we do with that anxiety determines what we do with our character, our peace, our joy, the condition of our souls.

But most of the time stress isn’t from unexpected trouble. Most of the time we put it on ourselves. With such things as 2) Unnecessary worry. Mark Twain once said, “I have had to experience terrible things in my life: a few of which actually happened. Worry is getting worked up over a bunch of stuff you have no control over. Jesus said it this way: Matthew 6:25-27 25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Said the robin to the sparrow: What I would really like ot know is why those anxious human beings rush about and worry so.” Said the sparrow to the robin: “I guess it must be that they have no heavenly Father such that cares for you and me.” Just a heads up: There is nothing productive about worry.

3) Unorganized clutter. Did you ever see that show “Clean Sweep.” People would come in and help others get organized. They would make three piles. One to give a way, one to keep and one to sell. Whether you have ever seen the show or not, you know that the pile that was the biggest was the one to keep. This would not only be a good exercise for us to do at our homes but it would be a good exercise for a lot of us to do with our minds. A cluttered mind will keep us from focusing on what is really important. James 1:8 says, he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. What about a triple minded man. Check this out. I found this on the internet this past week:

Recently, I was Diagnosed with AAADD - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests:
I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only 1 check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do. At the end of the day:
1) The car isn't washed 2) The bills aren't paid 3) There is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter4) The flowers don't have enough water,5) There is still only 1 check in my check book, 6) I can't find the remote,7) I can't find my glasses, 8) And I don't remember what I did with the car keys. Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.

4) Unfinished tasks - Some of us like the scientific term - Procrastination. Steve has a shirt that says, “Procrastinators unite - tomorrow.” In a lot of our lives, nothing has made us run faster or work harder than procrastination. Procrastination just puts pressure on us. A lot of us say, “I just work better under pressure. No you don’t. You just always work under pressure because when we work under pressure we trade this aweful feeling of guilt for an immense feeling of victory. Procrastination allows a tiny problem to grow and grow.

5) Unrealistic expectations - many people are success driven. They have high expectations for themselves and their kids. Their kids are involved in everything a child can be involved in. Soccer, basketball, ballet, tennis, guitar. When they are shuttling from one activity to another the family stops off at a fast food restaurant so that when they finally get home the child can get right to homework and keeping up that 4.0. You have to choose. Set some boundaries. We can’t do everything. You shouldn’t even try to do everything. Maybe one of your goals for the summer of 2010 is to SIMPLIFY. Proverbs 17:1 Better a dry crust with peace and quiet
than a house full of feasting, with strife.

6) Unsolicited criticism - Whenever you are in a leadership position you can expect this. Parents know all about this. Criticism can eat you alive so much so that it can affect your personality. Have you ever wondered why coaches and managers say they don’t read the newspaper. If you and I start listening to the criticism and take it to heart then we likely will become reactionaries. Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. If you don’t let God deal with it, it will finally turn into unresolved bitterness and that will rob your joy and snatch your life away.

7) Uninterrupted seriousness - Sometimes some of us can get so serious that we miss whole weeks of life. My dad told me a long time ago, “Don’t take yourself so serious.” God is going to meet a bunch of us in heaven and say, “I didn’t mean for you to have such a crummy time.. Why didn’t you do more fun stuff. Laugh more. A lot of us need to just block some time out where fun could just possibly break out. What do you think? Do you think God wants us to have fun? He has cranked out a few million blessings for us. Proverbs 17:22 A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

8) Unbridled appetite - We will never know peace living outside the boundaries of God. We will never no peace if we are controlled by our appetites, impulses and senses. Every time we make a decision based on the feeling of the moment, just a little high, a little rush, we may sense momentary pleasure but we will eventually end up in a vicious cycle wanting more until we will never know peace.

9) The last one we are going to look at today is an Unhealthy Self-Image. We are always trying to prove ourselves. Someone look at me, love me, like me, applaud me, affirm me, choose me, notice me. Behind the anxiety, the work addiction not centered in the truth of who they are, they fail to notice that God notices them and that they are loved an accepted by the one who matters most.

It will be a great day when we get off the tread mill of stress. We will have peace. 1 John 3:1 1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God. God isn’t going to change. He is not going bail on you. He isn’t going to set some unrealistic goal on you. You don’t have to prove yourself. God says to you speaking to you worn and weary heart, “I love you for you.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Today not tomorrow. Today is the 142 anniversary of Memorial Day. It is a day set aside by our nation to remember and honor all who have paid the ultimate price to preserve and maintain our freedom. Stand up if you have ever served in the military. Raise your hand if you have a relative who is serving or who has served in the military. Thank you so very much for your service. It continue to make a difference today in our lives!

It is certainly befitting that we should honor those brave men and women who have sacrificed to preserve this great nation of ours, for we must never forget that freedom is never free. Freedom is always costly. It has always cost one of our most precious possessions—life itself. Therefore, we must remember, lest we forget freedom’s value. We must remember, so that we do not take freedom for granted. We must remember, so that our freedom remains precious to us.

Video The Sacrifice of One

Remember the freedoms we have aren’t because some one set on their back side and was flipping through the channels. The freedoms we have are because people left their family, friends, job, church and way of life behind and many died. Remember?

Remembering is also key to the proper attitude toward God in life. When everything seems the same and nothing is new, understand how great that can be! If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you like me are most blessed than 6 million people who will not survive this week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation you like me are ahead of 500 million people in the world. If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death you like me are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, roof overhead, and a place to sleep you like me are richer than 75% of this world.

When everything seems the same, and there seems to be nothing new remember how God made all these things amazing to begin with. When you are down and out about having to do school work - remember how excited you were to get your acceptance letter to college. When you are stuck in traffic remember how excited you were to get your drivers’ license. When your employer is driving you nuts remember how excited you were to get a job.

Let’s use 103 call ourselves back to worship. Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. David is saying is “soul, soul, wake up. Soul let’s get it together. Praise the Lord. Soul when you don’t feel like praise the Lord, remember all of his benefits.

So let me ask you and me: Are we thankful today for all that God has done for us? A problem in my life and I imagine in yours is that we often treat God as common. But God is not common. God is holy. God is all knowing. God is all powerful. He controls the universe. He starts and stops lightning bolts. He allows tornadoes to land in this field or that but not to touch this house or that one. His hands keep the planets spinning with far greater accuracy than one of the Chinese acrobats keeps plates spinning while riding a unicycle. And we think that whole acrobat thing is so cool. It’s not just the big things in nature that are cool. It is also the small things. He made all the intricacies of our human body which has a central nervous system that if it were placed end to tend would reach all the way to China. He has given us our eyes that see many of the colors of the world. I’m told that if our legs exercised as much as our eyes did everyday that we would have to walk 20 miles a day. There are small things in nature that God placed there that make our ecosystem run. Here are some; insects dispose and recycle animal dung and the dead remains of plants and animals. Life as we know it could not exist without such recycling processes. Also, the tiny midge pollinates the cocoa plant. Without it, there would be no chocolate! So this summer when the biting flies come around quit swatting those things, I want chocolate. There are many more example that are truly amazing from nature that would intrigue us and blow our minds all day long.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Today we are wrapping up our series 5 Lies of the devil. As we do so, be sure to keep in mind that Satan has a lot more than just five lies up his sleeve. He will always be lying and twisting the truth. Here are the four lies that we have looked at so far: 1. God won’t give you anymore than you can handle. 2. Follow your heart. 3. It’s just sex. 4. Faith is a private issue. Today we are going to look at this lie: The church, you can fill in the blank, The Point or your home church, just wants your money. So today we are going to talk about money. Money, money, money. But not really, because at the core of the issue isn’t money but it is your heart and mine.

Because you see the church doesn’t need your money or mine. Furthermore, God doesn’t need our money. He is not out on the corner of Oakland and Locust looking for a couple of bucks to ride the bus. He is not coming into my office and hitting us up for $20 until payday, promising that he will give $25 back. God’s church and his ministry at The Point isn’t for sell. God is still God. Jesus is still Lord. And people are still going to hell. And people still need to hear the gospel. If God shuts us down, that is his deal and his will and it shall be so, but in the meantime we still need to reach college students and it’s still going to cost money.

I have four questions for us to consider today. First one is this: Am I out of control financially? To help us answer our questions we are going to look at 2 Kings 4. The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves." The woman comes to Elisha and wants God to fix her financial problem. And she has one. Keep in mind that back in her day if you carried a debt up to a certain date your children could literally be taken from you, forced into slavery until an equitable amount of service had paid off the debt. So she comes to God. Looking for help. So often we do the same. God fix my financial problems. But God didn’t tell us to run up our credit cards debt, to buy the care, the house. We always want to take our financial problems to God but if we would have listened to him in the first place we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Contextually, the man in 2 Kings died without life insurance and left his family stranded. We don’t know why. We don’t know what happened in his life. Was he out of control? But the better question is: Are you of control? Am I out of control? How can we know? Here are some indicators: 1. We have a credit card balance with no plan to pay it off. Keep in mind the minimum payment of your balance is not a plan to pay it off. Or have you fallen into this trap. I will get a credit card in case of an ___________ (emergency). How many emergencies do we have? We go to mall check out the clothes and say, “Wow, that is a nice emergency.” Or, “I’ve been wanting to exercise on an emergency like that.” I’m told that 25% of shoppers know what they are going to buy, the other 75% are just looking for emergencies. Think about it. Or how about this, you fill in the blank, I had to buy it because it was on ________ (sale). Some, check this out, actually believe they have saved more money than they have spent by buying things we “need.” One retailer in town will even circle that savings number in red for you. I will be honest. I have made bad financial decisions. Raise your hand if you have too.

Indicator 2 that our financial situation is out of control. You are spending more than you make. Or, we don’t know if we are spending more than we make. # 3. If we make more than 50K a feel significant financial pressure we are out of control. By making 50K we are in the top 1% of money makers in the world. # 4. We make financial decisions that we hope our spouse doesn’t(or parents don’t) find out about. # 5. We transfer balances to from 1 cc to another.

Question 2. Am I discontent with what I have? Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?" "Your servant has nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil." Are we content? Are we satisfied with what we already have or do we want more? What we already have is key. The key is not in getting more stuff or more money but in managing what God has already given us. Elisha asks, “What do you have in your home?” “Nothing, but a little oil.” A little oil. I have worked hard for it, my neighbor has more. And the guy around the block has his own oil platform, and it is not the one that is leaking. We need to get some clarity here: Pretty much, it’s only in the US where we go to our closets that are packed full of clothes and lament, “I have nothing to wear.” We go our disorganized and full frig’s and cry out, “There is nothing to eat in this house.” For a lot of us, our cars get to sleep inside. I’m told that as a country we spend 12 billion a year on storage. 40 billion on pets. So we don’t have anything because we are comparing ourselves to people who have more. I’m fine with my car, until I see an Escalade or a Lexus. I’m fine with my furniture until I see the ad on tv. Speaking of tv’s, I could go for one of those big screen, high def deals. Oh, and if you give me the high def tv deal God, I will worship you with it. I will watch like Time of Grace. This is what we do with God isn’t it? “I have some stuff but if you give me more stuff, I will worship you with it. And Jesus is no fool and he says, “You are full of it.” Jesus says in Luke 16:10-12 10"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? The key is not in more, but in managing what you have.

Question 3 Am I willing to have Jesus Lord of my life? Not just Lord of my one hour a week of worship. Not just my prayer time. Not just my relationship at home when it is going the way I want it. Am I willing to give Am I willing to give God my dating life? My major? My church? God my wallet? Some of us may be surprised to know that Jesus talked about money a lot. And I mean a lot. Jesus says in Matthew 6:24, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. So when we are talking Lord of our life, we are talking about Lord of our billfold, our purse, our benjamins, our paychecks. 2 Kings 4:3-4 Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. 4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side." Do you see it. The woman already had the solution. The solution isn’t more. It’s management. So Elisha tells her: go to your neighbors and ask for jars and then when you take that step of faith and do what may seem ridiculous, God will get supernaturally involved. This is why you and I have to start worshipping God with what we already have because God can do we may more with our little then we can ever do with a lot more than what we already have.

2 Kings 4:5,6 She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one." But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing. She trusted Elisha. And she poured and poured and poured. Until the jars ran out she poured. God blessed her more than she could imagine. She trusted God with her finances. Check out what God says in Malachi 3:10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. We can do a lot if we quit paying Visa, American Excess. It is amazing what we can Discover if we put God first and you don’t owe people.

Last question: Are we part time or full time? I don’t know about you but I don’t always want to follow Jesus. I whine and complain. And I bet if you are honest, you are the same unless you are the Holy Spirit. That’s being part time. 2 Kings 4:7 She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left. She tells Elisha about what happened and asks what should I do. Go and sell it. Pay your debts and take care of your family. And she did it. Can God trust us with blessings? He isn’t going to trust us with more if he can’t trust us with what we already have.

Did you ever notice that God gave an offering? He didn’t feel guilty about it. It wasn’t his leftovers. It was his best. His first fruit. He gave his Son. His one and only Son. And Jesus paid our spiritual debts in full. Through Jesus we are made right with God. Since he is not only our Savior but our Lord we are to give God our best too. Following Jesus means he is to get everything. For some of us this message wasn’t about our money, it was about our job, our career, our mind, our mouth, our dating life. For all of us, this message was really all about our heart and who we are going to worship.

Let’s pray - Thank you Jesus that you gave your all . . .

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Think of a couple of significant events that have happened in your life. Share one or two of those with someone sitting next to you. One of the most significant events in our life is the day we spoke our first word. We probably don’t remember it, unless our parents happened to have a video camera running at that very second. But from that day forward we have been speaking ever since. And for some of you, I mean you have been speaking ever since. (Me too!) Today we are continuing our series Five Lies of the Devil. And a lot of us have grown up under the impression that our faith is a very personal issue but guess what. When Jesus says in Matthew 5:14-16 14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. When he says you, meaning you and me, and when he says world he is eliminating the idea that faith is simply a personal thing. It is a world thing, a global thing, a universe thing, a thing for everyone to see. So don’t try to hide behind the excuse that my faith is personal. That balloon is never going to get off the ground. In Romans 10 we are told The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. You and I don’t have to be extraordinary to tell others about Jesus.

In Joshua 5: 13 it says, Now when Joshua was near Jericho, The first time we meet Joshua, he is just an ordinary guy. The only thing that separated Josh from his peers, and I want you to get this, the only thing that separated Josh form his peers is that he believed that God was really big and that God could do what he said he could do! The town of Jericho is important, maybe you remember Jericho it was the town where Joshua and the Israelites had their first major battle as they were entering the Promised Land. Jericho is the town where the walls came tumbling down after all the armed men marched around once on day 1, once on day two, and so on until day seven when they marched around the city seven times and the trumpets blasted and the walls came crashing down and the armed men came in and took the city. It was at Jericho that God moved Joshua to the forefront. It was here that the people started to say of Joshua, “that man follows God. That man is the real deal.” I want you to know that I think some of us today are at our Jericho’s. We know we have eternal life, God gave us faith. But some of us are ready today to reach out and have abundant life. If we want to go to the next level we have to have recognition.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

I have been avoiding a message on the topic that we are going to be talking about today for about three years now. And before this is over some might be angry, mad, bothered to name a few. I came here thinking that so many college students had the whole sex thing rammed down their throats in youth group that to say it again would be a huge bore. But in the last three years I have come to realize that most college students, even with a Christian background, never really went to youth group in the first place. And that sex and thoughts of sex and pornography are eating way at the fabric of society.

The devil lies and says, “It’s just sex.” Sarah, not her real name, bought into that lie. She went to an ALHS and one night being kinda teenage girl wild slept with hey boyfriend who also went to ALHS. After a lot of guilt and shame, and some of that guilt and shame was caused because she wanted more. She moved on. Until her sophomore year of college when she and a guy friend, not her boyfriend, decided that they would just have sex. No emotion was to be involved. They would just fulfill their base needs. And I bet there a lot of guys out there, going where is this girl in my life. And that’s cause your pigs. Well, Sarah, being a typical girl, that is emotional. Ended falling for this guy hard, who at the end of the day, just wanted to have sex with her. Studies show that 60% of married men and about 43% of married women will have an affair. And for a lot of them, it is because they got some practice before they got started (before marriage).

It’s just sex. It’s just porn. We are consenting adults. Today we are going to look at some false beliefs based on the lie of “it is just sex,” that will ruin intimacy in your marriage now or for those not married that will ruin it for you later. 1) I can relax now. In 2 Samuel 11, we run into a guy named David. David was very conscientious in all he did. He was a phenomenal musician. As an adolescent, he literally fought off lions and bears that attacked his sheep. This is the David that took out the warrior Goliath. He soon became a part of the kings entourage and became a valiant fighter for the nation of Israel. And one thing led to another and he actually became king. 2 Samuel 11:1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. Normally David would have gone out to fight. But he felt like he had arrived. Fighting was now something that others could do now. He already proved himself. The bottom line was he was neglecting his duty. Unfortunately neglecting one’s responsibility when it comes to marriage almost happens from the beginning. According to theknot.com the average wedding today costs over $25,000. But very little time and money go into planning the marriage. And let me tell you, if you have drama in dating - just wait till you are married. Guys here are some examples of you know you are neglecting your spouse when: what is special to her is no longer special to you. You don’t pray with her or for her. Girls here are some examples of you know you are neglecting your spouse when: you talk to your friends about him instead of to him. You are excited that he is spending more time at work then at home. I am going to give you a newflash here: Marriage is hard work. It is not just work - it is hard work. As soon as you say, “I will,” the hard work will begin.

2) I need to look elsewhere. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" I want you to know that when David went to the roof of the palace, it really wasn’t to walked around. It was to scope the scenery out, and I’m not talking trees and flowers. He knew what he was doing. He knew that women like to take hot baths. Back at this time bath tubs were placed on the roof so that the sun would heat the water. When he went out onto the roof, it was the same as logging onto a porn site today. Studies show 70% of men visited a porn site this week. Porn is a 12 billion dollar a year industry. Let me break that down for you - that is $380 per second. Men are all over with eyes and women are starting to connect emotionally on Facebook. Hey, get your needs met by our spouse. It’s hard work and it is worth it.

3) God is ok with this. Having an affair - God’s okay with it. Looking at porn - God’s okay with it. Let me tell you straight up - GOD IS NOT OKAY WITH IT. A honest relationship with God is not based on, God I’m inot this so you like it. It is God what do you want me to do with my life. His word is the touchstone, not our rampant emotions. Verse 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant." David was like, I will just have sex with her and send her home. No one will know. It will be our secret. Then like two weeks later Bathsheba got real hungry. She just couldn’t stop eating. So she ran down to the neighborhood Walgreens because she didn’t want to go to the pregnancy counseling center at the temple. Plus sign. She sent word to David. We are going to have a baby. Having sex outside of marriage, married or not and you will get caught. 100% guarantee, you will get caught. Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:7)

David came up with a plan. Because that is what we do instead of repenting, isn’t it. Come up with a plan. So he sends for Uriah for the battle lines. Uriah gets home and chats with David, they have been friends for a long time. And then David sends Uriah home to be with Bathsheba his wife. But Uriah sleeps outside. He wouldn’t go home. He couldn’t allow himself to be with his wife while his fellow soldiers were out fighting. You see, Uriah had integrity. David had none. And when David heard the Uriah had not gone home to be with Bathsheba he couldn’t believe it. So the next night David gets Uriah drunk and sends him home. But again Uriah won’t get in. So David comes up with plan C. He writes a letter to Joab, the general of the army. The letter tells Joab to put Uriah in the front line sof the battle and when the fighting gets it fiercest have all the army pull away from Uriah so he will surely die. And get this. David seals up the letter and sends it back with Uriah. Uriah is carrying his own death notice. And David married Bathsheba. No big deal right. 2 Samuel 11:27b says, But the thing David had done displeased the LORD. I can’t tell you how many times people come to me and say, God just wants me to be happy. I won’t you to know that is true until your happiness is sin and it tries to trump God’s holiness. That’s wrong. God is not and never will affirm this sin or any sin. So don’t even take your heart down that path to hell.

4) There won’t be any consequences. God loves me and so there will be no consequences to action. Hey, I love to eat. I could eat and eat. I can eat a lot of you put together under the table. But there are consequences to my eating a lot. I have learned to control myself pretty good. I mean, Jacky used to make spaghetti and I would eat so much, so quickly, that I would have a serious stomach ache for the rest of the evening right on though all the meetings I had. So God comes to Nathan and says I want you to help me out here. So Nathan goes to David and tells Nathan about two men. One man was very poor. All he had was one little lamb. It was precious to the man. The man kept inside at night and took great care of it. Some of you have pets and so you kinda know what I’m talking about. And then there was this rich man who had thousands and thousands of lambs. They were all over the place. He had a huge staff to just watch over them all. One day the rich man had an out of town guest come by. And the two began to celebrate. When it was time to eat, the rich man ripped off the poor man’s lamb and they had a feast. They had leg of lamb. They had gyros. It tasted great. Nathan asked David what do you think should happen to the rich man. Upon hearing the story David was furious. He burned. He had no problem telling Nathan that rich man in your story should die. And Nathan paused, looked to the ground, and then look up and into David’s eye. And said, You are the man. "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.' " 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, [

5) God’s through with me. I know for some of you, this has put you on the hot seat. And you are thinking, what’s the use. The enemy Satan is heaping guilt on you. First thing you are going to have to do is admit your sin or it’s not going to get solved. It’s embarrassing. It stinks. It’s hard. But the consequences of concealment are always worse than the consequences of confession. God’s not through with you. The uneasiness is simply God’s mercy calling you back. Do you know that in Scripture it says of David, the adulterer, the murderer, the porn person, the lack of self-controlled one, that he was a man after God’s own heart. Wow. How can this be. It happened this way: David didn’t say to God: this is who I am. You are just going to have to like me. Nor did he say: this is the way you made me. David didn’t say: I just found my soul mate with this girl. David was broken by his sin. In Psalm 51 David says, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. David was saying, I’m sorry and I don’t want to live this way anymore. He didn’t just say, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It was, I’m sorry and I don’t want to live this way anymore. If you have no guilt over your sex sins, it is probably not because you are a pervert. It is because God is not with you. And that goes for all other sins as well.

Five questions:

1. Have you ever had sex with someone other than me?

2. Where have I become slack in my efforts to make you feel important?

3. (guys ask wives and then shut up) I think it is romantic when _______________________.

4. (Wives ask your guy) I feel most appreciated and respected when you ____________________.

5. Are you engaging in anything on line I would be ashamed of if I found out?

A lot of stuff here. This one was tough. But if God will save one marriage or a marriage to be then I’m good with it.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

I have been avoiding a message on the topic that we are going to be talking about today for about three years now. And before this is over some might be angry, mad, bothered to name a few. I came here thinking that so many college students had the whole sex thing rammed down their throats in youth group that to say it again would be a huge bore. But in the last three years I have come to realize that most college students, even with a Christian background, never really went to youth group in the first place. And that sex and thoughts of sex and pornography are eating way at the fabric of society.

The devil lies and says, “It’s just sex.” Sarah, not her real name, bought into that lie. She went to an ALHS and one night being kinda teenage girl wild slept with hey boyfriend who also went to ALHS. After a lot of guilt and shame, and some of that guilt and shame was caused because she wanted more. She moved on. Until her sophomore year of college when she and a guy friend, not her boyfriend, decided that they would just have sex. No emotion was to be involved. They would just fulfill their base needs. And I bet there a lot of guys out there, going where is this girl in my life. And that’s cause your pigs. Well, Sarah, being a typical girl, that is emotional. Ended falling for this guy hard, who at the end of the day, just wanted to have sex with her. Studies show that 60% of married men and about 43% of married women will have an affair. And for a lot of them, it is because they got some practice before they got started (before marriage).

It’s just sex. It’s just porn. We are consenting adults. Today we are going to look at some false beliefs based on the lie of “it is just sex,” that will ruin intimacy in your marriage now or for those not married that will ruin it for you later. 1) I can relax now. In 2 Samuel 11, we run into a guy named David. David was very conscientious in all he did. He was a phenomenal musician. As an adolescent, he literally fought off lions and bears that attacked his sheep. This is the David that took out the warrior Goliath. He soon became a part of the kings entourage and became a valiant fighter for the nation of Israel. And one thing led to another and he actually became king. 2 Samuel 11:1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. Normally David would have gone out to fight. But he felt like he had arrived. Fighting was now something that others could do now. He already proved himself. The bottom line was he was neglecting his duty. Unfortunately neglecting one’s responsibility when it comes to marriage almost happens from the beginning. According to theknot.com the average wedding today costs over $25,000. But very little time and money go into planning the marriage. And let me tell you, if you have drama in dating - just wait till you are married. Guys here are some examples of you know you are neglecting your spouse when: what is special to her is no longer special to you. You don’t pray with her or for her. Girls here are some examples of you know you are neglecting your spouse when: you talk to your friends about him instead of to him. You are excited that he is spending more time at work then at home. I am going to give you a newflash here: Marriage is hard work. It is not just work - it is hard work. As soon as you say, “I will,” the hard work will begin.

2) I need to look elsewhere. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" I want you to know that when David went to the roof of the palace, it really wasn’t to walked around. It was to scope the scenery out, and I’m not talking trees and flowers. He knew what he was doing. He knew that women like to take hot baths. Back at this time bath tubs were placed on the roof so that the sun would heat the water. When he went out onto the roof, it was the same as logging onto a porn site today. Studies show 70% of men visited a porn site this week. Porn is a 12 billion dollar a year industry. Let me break that down for you - that is $380 per second. Men are all over with eyes and women are starting to connect emotionally on Facebook. Hey, get your needs met by our spouse. It’s hard work and it is worth it.

3) God is ok with this. Having an affair - God’s okay with it. Looking at porn - God’s okay with it. Let me tell you straight up - GOD IS NOT OKAY WITH IT. A honest relationship with God is not based on, God I’m inot this so you like it. It is God what do you want me to do with my life. His word is the touchstone, not our rampant emotions. Verse 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant." David was like, I will just have sex with her and send her home. No one will know. It will be our secret. Then like two weeks later Bathsheba got real hungry. She just couldn’t stop eating. So she ran down to the neighborhood Walgreens because she didn’t want to go to the pregnancy counseling center at the temple. Plus sign. She sent word to David. We are going to have a baby. Having sex outside of marriage, married or not and you will get caught. 100% guarantee, you will get caught. Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:7)

David came up with a plan. Because that is what we do instead of repenting, isn’t it. Come up with a plan. So he sends for Uriah for the battle lines. Uriah gets home and chats with David, they have been friends for a long time. And then David sends Uriah home to be with Bathsheba his wife. But Uriah sleeps outside. He wouldn’t go home. He couldn’t allow himself to be with his wife while his fellow soldiers were out fighting. You see, Uriah had integrity. David had none. And when David heard the Uriah had not gone home to be with Bathsheba he couldn’t believe it. So the next night David gets Uriah drunk and sends him home. But again Uriah won’t get in. So David comes up with plan C. He writes a letter to Joab, the general of the army. The letter tells Joab to put Uriah in the front line sof the battle and when the fighting gets it fiercest have all the army pull away from Uriah so he will surely die. And get this. David seals up the letter and sends it back with Uriah. Uriah is carrying his own death notice. And David married Bathsheba. No big deal right. 2 Samuel 11:27b says, But the thing David had done displeased the LORD. I can’t tell you how many times people come to me and say, God just wants me to be happy. I won’t you to know that is true until your happiness is sin and it tries to trump God’s holiness. That’s wrong. God is not and never will affirm this sin or any sin. So don’t even take your heart down that path to hell.

4) There won’t be any consequences. God loves me and so there will be no consequences to action. Hey, I love to eat. I could eat and eat. I can eat a lot of you put together under the table. But there are consequences to my eating a lot. I have learned to control myself pretty good. I mean, Jacky used to make spaghetti and I would eat so much, so quickly, that I would have a serious stomach ache for the rest of the evening right on though all the meetings I had. So God comes to Nathan and says I want you to help me out here. So Nathan goes to David and tells Nathan about two men. One man was very poor. All he had was one little lamb. It was precious to the man. The man kept inside at night and took great care of it. Some of you have pets and so you kinda know what I’m talking about. And then there was this rich man who had thousands and thousands of lambs. They were all over the place. He had a huge staff to just watch over them all. One day the rich man had an out of town guest come by. And the two began to celebrate. When it was time to eat, the rich man ripped off the poor man’s lamb and they had a feast. They had leg of lamb. They had gyros. It tasted great. Nathan asked David what do you think should happen to the rich man. Upon hearing the story David was furious. He burned. He had no problem telling Nathan that rich man in your story should die. And Nathan paused, looked to the ground, and then look up and into David’s eye. And said, You are the man. "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.' " 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, [

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

About the time you were born a Swedish pop duo (D.H.T.) released a song “Listen to your heart.“ For those of who were hip and fly in the late 80’s and early 90’s the song gave us direction and guidance. It at least sub-consciously played a parenting role in the lives of many people my age and so has effected the lives of many students who are in college today. Just a hand full of years ago a remix was released and it still can be heard at clubs. Just Follow Your Heart. Dream big and follow your heart. Have you ever heard that? Given someone that advice? We grew up on Disney and fairy tales and so we have bought into this lie of Satan. We make hundreds of decisions each day. Some are not so important and yet some are life changing decisions with far reaching consequences. To make God honoring decisions we must rely on more than our senses and experiences. In reality, our hearts are not a precision instruments for what is right, not even close. It would be like using one of those big hand held hedge trimmers to cut a pad of butter. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful about all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. Matthew 1519-20 :19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean. Just follow your heart doesn’t sound like such a good idea does it? Our hearts will assure us that we know better than God, that we are more just than God, that we are more loving than God. Our hearts will try to convince us that as long as we love someone it’s ok to cross sexual lines. Our hearts will try to convince us that as long as nobody gets hurt it will be ok. Our hearts will try to manipulate God. Our hearts will perplex us when we can’t figure out God or make him work the way he should work according to the morality of our heart.

Our hearts’ from the get go don’t like God. Our hearts by nature arrivals to God. We are used to them especially in the sports world. UWM/UWGB, Marquette/Notre Dame, North Carolina/Duke, Oklahoma/Nebraska. In South Carolina, the big and I mean big, rivalry is South Carolina vs. Clemson. Check out this video.

I know I have been a lot like Jad. Lord, I’m going to fit you into the equation in my life and so Lord you are just going to kinda of naturally bless me because I’m pretty good right? Lord I’m just going to go full steam ahead, throw a few prayers around and you are to keep trouble away from me. Deal? And if I’m not presenting myself to God as someone who is already deserving of the good things in life then it looks like this. Ok God, what I do I have to do to get what I want. I will probably do it but you better come through whether I do or not. From the beginning my hearts sucks and so does yours. Just follow our hearts - not good advice.

There is this guy in the Old Testament. He was popular, powerful and wise. He pretty much got everything his heart wanted literally. He had every kind of degree imaginable, double majoring no problem, early graduation no problem. And guys, check this out - he got all the girls. He had some many women, he ran out of fantasies. He followed his heart. He chased his hearts desires. His name is Solomon, King Solomon. And when he chased his heart this is his own commentary: Ecclesiastes 2:10,11 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed what my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

When our hearts want us to chase degrees, climb the corporate ladders, get a bank load of benjamins, engage in lustful relationships or whatever, our hearts are leading us away from God. All this chasing after our hearts desires has led us to be the most depressed nation on the face of the earth. We can’t sleep because we have insomnia because we are worried about school, grades, job, money, relationships. We fill our lives with family, friends, sports and parties and there is still a hole that is not filled. Has your heart ever gotten you in trouble?

Do you know what God’s equation is? God’s desire is for our salvation, not for football, dance, song, grades, job, money. Jesus doesn’t want to take our hearts. He just wants to give us his. God just wants to give us his heart. (relate Wed. frustrating events) I again came to the realization that I need a new heart. Do you need a new heart? Not that you would ever say anything to her, but the girl down the hall way is a real bi . . . That guy in my stats class is real sleaze bag. I don’t know how she got this job and how people can’t see that she is a piece of work. It is my prayer that you will see our hearts for what they really are and plead with God to replace my heart.

Ezekiel 36:24-32 God wants to give us a new heart but nor for our sake but for his glory. And I willing to bet that sounds just as funny to you as it did to me. It sounds like something is not right here. A new heart but not for our sakes but for his glory. It sounds funny, because we have been living for our glory and not for his glory. This is a life change. This is what happens with a replaced heart we live for God instead for ourselves and our heart doesn’t want that.

But even with a replaced heart we need to be careful not to lose focus. I remember running a short road race and one of the competitors was just that a competitor not a seasoned racer. When the gun sounded this person took off like a bat out of hell. He accelerated to the front of the pack. Now I’m not near the fastest person alive but I was not worried. I knew I would catch him and pass him and beat him by a mile - literally. You see this person had lost focus. He ran the race as if the race was going to be won at the first turn on the road. His focus was on the turn on the road not the finish line. The winner wasn’t going to be determined for miles after that first turn.

Sometimes in our striving in life, striving for approval, for success, for happiness we lose our focus. And when we lose our focus God gets blurry and we may even completely lose sight of him. And truth be told, I have and you have fallen into sin way more than we needed to because we lost focus. Hebrews 12:1-3 1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Jesus for the joy set before him endured the cross. How does that work? People are hitting him, spitting on him, making fun of him, pulling out his beard, creasing his brow with a crown of thorns, nailing him to the cross. How’s that joy? Get this: Jesus had a perspective from altitude not longitude. Jesus had a perspective from eternity not just the present. Jesus was willing to go to hell and back because it wasn’t about his momentary happiness it was about God.

You may be struggling right now. You may have put off your papers and readings and now and in addition to all of that tests are just around the corner. You want to give up but you know that is not what God has called you to. You need to keep your focus. Life isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. You run a marathon one step at a time. And so it is with life, one step at a time with God!