Slowing Down To Fast

(I started by showing the church a table full of food with chips, candy, cans of food, fruit, cereal, coke, etc…)

Have you ever thought of controlled we are by these things? There’s not a day that goes by where we don’t have these things or other types of food on our mind!

Food calls out to us all the time – at least three times a day and usually more! :)

• Have you ever thought about how much time eating takes up?
• Have you ever thought of how much a distraction food is? (Use loud radio in background.)

It’s hard to focus on other things when these things are calling out so loudly to us!

Don’t worry, I’m not talking about giving up eating completely. But what about temporarily?

What if giving these things up TEMPORARILY could change you or your life PERMANENTLY? Would it be worth it to you to try it?

How many of you have ever fasted one meal?
How many of you have ever fasted one day?
How many of you have ever fasted more than one day?

Think about this…

Fasting is something that’s universally practiced in most major religions. It’s also something that we seem to do naturally. It seems to be a part of our nature.

Don’t believe me?

• Have you ever been so sad that you couldn’t or didn’t want to eat? That was you naturally choosing to fast!
• Have you ever been so excited about something or focused on something that you forgot to eat? That was you naturally choosing to fast!

Today I want to talk about fasting.

I want to show you what it is, show you reasons from the Bible of why to fast, talk about different types of fasts, and then I want to end with a challenge for you -- by giving some reasons why you might want to join me fasting from now until Easter.


Alright, so, What is fasting? I know you know what it is but listen to what James Packer in "Your Father Loves You", says…

“We tend to think of fasting as going without food. But we can fast from anything. If we love music and decide to miss a concert in order to spend time with God, that is fasting. It is helpful to think of the parallel of human friendship. When friends need to be together, they will cancel all other activities in order to make that possible. There's nothing magical about fasting. It's just one way of telling God that your priority at that moment is to be alone with him, sorting out whatever is necessary, and you have cancelled the meal, party, concert, or whatever else you had planned to do in order to fulfill that priority.”

So fasting is a natural thing that has nothing magical to it. But, don’t be fooled by this. There are some powerful things that Fasting CAN do in your life!

We’ll talk about that in a second but first, let’s look at 3 main forms of fasting that there are in the Bible…

This is from the “Holman Bible Dictionary” and it says…

“The Bible describes three main forms of fasting: 1) The Normal Fast, involving the total abstinence of food. Luke 4:2 reveals that Jesus “did eat nothing.” Afterwards “He was hungered.” Jesus abstained from food but not from water. 2) In Acts 9:9 we read of an Absolute Fast where for three days He “neither did eat nor drink.” The abstinence from both food and water seems to have lasted no more than three days (Ezra 10:6; Esther 4:16). 3) The Partial Fast—in Daniel 10:3 the emphasis is upon the restriction of diet rather than complete abstinence. The context implies that there were physical benefits resulting from this partial fast. However, this verse indicates that there was a revelation given to Daniel as a result of this time of fasting.”

One kind of fasting that many people are doing this time of year is called “LENT”. (I went on to describe it: why, how long, except Sundays, & what Sue & I are doing. Hear audio for exactly what I said.)

Before we look at what the Bible teaches us about fasting, let me tell you this…

There are a few places where God specifically tells people to fast, but usually in the Bible fasting is something that’s taught more by example than with words!

There are all sorts of places where Godly people in the Bible show by example why Fasting is important.

And when we look at these examples, we start getting a picture of reasons WHY we should fast. Let’s look at “WHY FAST?”

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“Keepin’ It Real” series: “Show And Tell”

When I was a kid I loved “show and tell”.

I couldn’t wait for the day when it was my turn and I could show and tell about my toy, or pet or whatever! It was fun to let people know about me and what I had.

But somewhere from the time we’re kids to the time we’re adults things change. Suddenly we don’t like “show & tell” anymore. Maybe it was all times kids made fun of us or judged us when we showed who we really were.

As adults we go from loving “Show & Tell” to instead wanting to play “Hide & Seek”. We’re not so open to letting people know us as much.

Today, I want to talk about a different kind of show and tell. This kind of “show and tell” I’m talking about is the 3rd group of people we need to confess to.

Last week, we talked about how we live in a culture that claims to want to “Keep it real”, but in reality our culture is really all about “Keepin’ it fake”.

People aren’t really supposed to show who they really are. They’re supposed to hide it. You have to always look cool, sound cool, and act cool. The internet is the perfect example of “Keepin’ it fake”!

There are places like MySpace.com is really a place for the unreal. People put of their best or favorite pictures of themselves, try to get a ton of friends to prove how cool or popular they are.

It’s showing only ONE side of them! It’s 1 dimensional - “1D”.

We said our culture is so NOT “Keepin’ it real” that even “Reality TV” isn’t real! In reality, our culture teaches many people that it’s all about “Keeping it fake!”

That’s why what I’m talking about is important.

In a culture filled with people “Keepin’ it fake” what I’m talking about could have a really powerful affect in our lives.

Remember:
We’re not talking about confession in the traditional way. We’re looking at it as a way to free us and others. We said that confession basically just means admit the truth. We said there are 3 people we need to confess/admit the truth to.

1. Ourselves (could be the hardest to confess to)

I read you a quote last week from David Allen who’s known as the “productivity guru”. He wrote a well-known book called, “Getting Things Done”. The quote I read was his 4th principle from his book called “Ready For Anything: 52 Productivity Principles For Work And Life”. Listen again to what he says…

“4. Getting to where you’re going requires knowing where you are.” Then he says, “A map is not functional until you know where you are on it.”

I told you that that’s what confession is! It’s self-inventory. It’s taking a REAL look at: where you’re at, how you’re doing, admitting what you’ve done right and wrong, and where you need help.

Until you do this you can’t get anywhere in life! This is the first step because until you do this you can’t confess to anyone else!

2. God

We Read 1 John 1:5-10 We saw that John was telling us…If you say you have fellowship with God, then you have “live in the light” and expose (admit) when you sin. That opens you up to others and cleanses you.

Then he says this in v. 8-9…

"8If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 9But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong."

We said that God wants what we want when someone does us wrong. We want them to ADMIT it and not make excuses!

But, God can’t forgive us just cause we’re really sorry. He can only forgive us when we acknowledge and accept the payment for our sin in what Jesus did for us. Once we begin this relationship, then the way to keep things from getting in the way of us and God is by DAILY admitting the truth of how we’ve messed up to God.

I told you that I think one of key things that holding a lot of us back in life is that we’re in denial. We’re falling short in a lot of areas. We have guilt. But we don’t do anything with it!And it stalls us out of the map of life.

We run out of gas and eventually go down in flames because we never took time to be REAL with ourselves and God and take a self-inventory.

Today, I want to talk about the third person we need to confess to. After confessing/admitting the truth to ourselves & God…

3. the third thing we need to do is confess/admit the truth to someone else. No everyone! But at least someone!

Let's look at James 5:16...

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“The Overlooked Miracle”

This message is Feb. 26th and I just found the time to post it!

Do you know what these people have in common?
(Showed pictures)

These people are 8 people who worked at a meatpacking plant together in Nebraska, who pooled their money and just recently won the biggest lottery Jackpot in U.S, history!

Listen to some of their stories from this report from Foxnews.com…

"Powerball Winners Tell Their Stories”
(Opens new window.)

Can you imagine what it would be like to go from a low paid meat packer to INSTANTLY a multi-millionaire? It’d be such a HUGE blessing that it’d be hard to believe. It’d feel like a dream!!! But it would definitely change your life forever!

Now how about this…

Could you imagine someone winning a lottery and not realizing it? You’d feel sorry for someone like this wouldn’t you? They’d live the same life when they could’ve lived differently...

It’d seem impossible or crazy for any one to do this wouldn’t it? Listen to this story…

Winning Powerball Ticket Found Under Bed
(Opens new window)

This guy almost missed out on something amazing and life-changing that he already possessed! If a friend didn’t tell him about the missing ticket he might have!

Why am I telling you these stories?

The Bible tells us we have an amazing gift, worth more than $365 million Powerball jackpot, that was given to each of us when we became Christ-followers.

The crazy thing is that many believers don’t realize or think about this amazing gift, so they live the same. Or, some who have heard about this amazing gift choose to live life without its benefit. We’re like this guy with the winning ticket under his bed!

Today, I want to talk about what I’m calling “The Overlooked Miracle”. I want to help us see this amazing gift God has ALREADY given us as believers, so you can leave here realizing what winners!

I want to be for you today like the friend who told him there was a missing ticket. I want you to have that same feeling that these winners had going from nothing to more than you can imagine! I want you to be able to live with the benefits!

What is the overlooked miracle I’m talking about? I’ll tell you in a minute, but first I want you to see something...

I started thinking about this overlooked miracle when I was in Washington, DC at the National Prayer Breakfast.

I was reading a passage, during my devotions, from the Old Testament, about an amazing event that happened in Israel’s history.

It was after reading these passages and thinking about them that I remembered about this overlooked miracle believers live with.

I have two passages to look at, so let’s look at the first one. Turn to 1 Kings 6:11-13.

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Keepin' It Real - PT 1

We live in a culture that claims to want to “Keep it real”, but in reality our society is really all about “Keepin’ it unreal”.

People aren’t really supposed to show who they really are. They’re supposed to hide it. You have to always look cool, sound cool, and act cool.

The internet is the perfect example of “Keepin’ it unreal”! You can be anyone you want to be! I remember a guy in college who was pretending to be a girl online and got invited by another guy to his cabin!

There are places like MySpace.com (a place I just joined to connect with some old youth kids and see if we can connect anybody with our church through it) and, besides being a site that has some crazy stuff on it that you need to guard yourself from, it’s really a place for the unreal.

People put of their best or favorite pictures of themselves, try to get a ton of friends to prove how cool or popular they are. It’s showing only ONE side of them!

Think about it. Our culture is so NOT “Keepin’ it real” that even “Reality TV” isn’t real! In reality, our culture teaches many people that it’s all about “Keeping it fake!”

That’s why what I’m about to talk about is important.

In a culture filled with people “Keepin’ it fake” what I’m about to talk about could have a really powerful affect in our lives.

Today, I want to start a short, 2-week series about “Confession”.

I’m not talking about the old school idea of confession. This ain’t your Grandma’s confession! I’m not talking about confessionals or being forced to admit your wrongs to the person sitting next to you.

I’ll be talking in a different way about confession. In fact, by the time we’re through, I hope you’ll never see “confession” the same way again.

The confession I’m going to be talking about is other thing that can actually help us to see the change we’ve been hoping for for so long.

It can and free us and others to really start “Keepin’ it real!”

Do you know what confession really is? It’s just admitting the truth.

There are 3 people we need to confess or admit the truth to. The first one is in some ways the hardest to admit to. Let me tell you a story before I tell you this first person we need to confess to…

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Next week, I want to finish this talk about “Keeping It Real”.

Some of the things I want to talk about…

• The last person you need to confess to.
• Talk about positive VS. negative confessions
• Talk about how I think confession can actually help protect us from making some HUGE mistakes in our life.

If you know someone who’d want to hear this sermon, then tell them about the link to hear it online and invite them to come THIS Sunday for PT2!

“Bringing The Vision Into Focus”

(This sermon was preached on Feb. 19th.)

In life it’s really easy to remember HOW to do something, but forget WHY we’re doing it.

Seth Godin, an author I’ve quoted before, who wrote the book “Purple Cow” had this post called “The Reason” on his blog last Wednesday. In the post he gave all these reasons why we do things nowadays that lost their meaning…. (See here. Don't worry! It opens new window).

We have to know the reason why we’re doing something or two things happen:

1. What we’re doing loses its effectiveness and becomes empty ritual. (like Seth is talking about)
2. We lose the motivation to keep doing that thing.

Not only is having a reason important, but have to have a sense of direction in life.

In Lewis Carrol’s book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” there’s a scene where Alice is asking the Cheshire Cat where to go. Listen to what he says…

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? (Asked Alice). “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where__” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

If we don’t care where we end up, then it doesn’t matter which way we go this year, but if we do then we need to be really careful which way we go!

Today I want to do two main things...

1. Have a check up with where we’re at. In order to do a “Check-up” you have to know what healthy is or looks like – where we’re headed. Within this “check-up” we’ll look at the WHY of what we’re doing.

2. Last year I taught a sermon called “The Missing Ingredient To Success” and told you the missing ingredient is action. Most of us know ALREADY know enough to see massive change in our lives IF we just did what we know. We’ll review some of what we’ve talked about last year and see how well we’re doing these things. We’re going to talk about how to apply what we’ve been learning even more so we can become more of who we feel God’s called us to be.

Before We Start:
I’m going to look at most of these things from the angle of how we’re doing as a group, but as you listen you can check yourself and see how you’re doing personally.

We’re going to use the picture of the first church in Act 2:42-47 as our check-up list to see how we’re doing...

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Important Steps To Creating A NEW Year Series: "The Formula For Amazing Results"

Let’s start with a recap of where we’re at in our series. Last week, we continued our “Important Steps To Creating A NEW Year” series.

Our 1st sermon was “The Key To Experiencing A NEW Year”. I used common math symbols to reveal the choices we have as we begin 2006. You can choose to be greater than (>), you can to be less than (<), or you can choose to be the same (=).

Most of what you experience and the results you get in 2006 will be TIED into this choice you make: to repent or not to repent.

Repentance is your key to a New Year! This message of repentance was what Jesus began his ministry with (Mark 1:15).


Our 2nd Sermon, used some more math symbols to describe two ways of living life. You can live a life of addition (+) and add to others and this world. Or, live a life of subtraction (-) and take from others and this world.

This way of living shows itself through: giving and serving. We need to go from “What can I get?” to “What can I give?” Jesus promised in Luke 6:38 to bless givers with an overflowing of blessing. In Philippians 2, we saw that to be like Jesus we have to serve others.

If you actually take these two approaches, then they will change what you do and why you do them!


Last week, I told you two things that can hold you back this year: how you view yourself and how you view what God can do. We looked at Numbers 13 and 14 and saw that the 10 spies who gave a bad report were focusing on the problems not the promise! That made them feel small and the problem (the people) seem big.

To become more of who God created us to be this year, we need these two views:

1. Focus on God and his promises: We have to get our eyes off of the problems and onto the promises.

2. Focus on how HE see us: You’d be shocked if you could see all that God see in you! Only God knows our REAL, full, potential!

----------

Today, I want to share with you what I’m calling “The Formula For Amazing Results”. If you do this combination of things this year, then God will be able to accomplish more in you and through you, than he probably ever has before in your life!

My sister and brother-in-law got me a book for Christmas called “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. It’s really a cool book about the importance of building relationships to succeed in life.

In this book, Keith tells a short story I want you to hear. He says…

“Newt Gingrich, the famous Republican politician and all-about-Washington gadfly, is known to tell a story about a lion and a field mouse. A lion, he says, can use his prodigious hunting skills to capture a field mouse with relative ease anytime he wants, but at the end of the day, no matter how many mice he’s ensnared, he’ll still be starving.”

Then Keith gives the moral of the story: “Sometimes, despite the risk and work involved, it’s worth going for the antelope.”

If we want this year to be a greater than year, if we want to live a life of addition this year, then we’re going to have to “go for the antelope” – we’re going to have to try to accomplish the BIG things instead of settling for the small things.

It’s more risky, but the payoff will be MORE than worth it!

Think with me for a second about any of the great people of the Bible…

Were they used by God because they attempted BIG things or SMALL things? BIG things!

There’s a formula that I want us to look at today that will help us to see God do amazing things in our life.

Here’s the first part of the formula:

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“Important Steps To Creating A NEW Year" Series: "The Two Most Important Views To Have In Life"

(This is the 3rd sermon in the series. I spoke it on January 22nd.)

Let’s start with a recap of where we’re at in our series...

Last week, we continued our “Important Steps To Creating A NEW Year” series.

Our first sermon was “The Key To Experiencing A NEW Year”. I used some common math symbols as an analogy for the choices we have as we begin 2006. You can choose to be greater than (>), you can to be less than (<), or you can choose to be the same (=).

Most of what you experience and the results you get in 2006 will be TIED into this choice you make: to repent or not to repent.

Repentance is your key to a New Year! This message of repentance was what Jesus began his ministry with (Mark 1:15).

Last Sunday, we used some more math symbols to describe two ways of living life.

You can live a life of addition (+) and add to others and this world.
Or, you can live a life of subtraction (-) and take from others and this world.

This way of Giving-living shows itself in two revolutionary approaches to life: giving and serving.

We need to go from asking the question “What can I get?” to asking “What can I give?” We saw in Luke 6:38 that Jesus promises to bless those who give to others with an overflowing of blessing. We saw in Phillipians 2 that if we want to be like Jesus we will have to serve others.

These two approaches will change what you do and why you do them!

I feel like God wants this to be our theme for this year as a church. We need to focus on giving and serving the only two directions we can: vertically towards God and horizontally toward others.

I believe that God wants us to do this inwardly (to each other) and outwardly (towards others). We need to give without wanting/expecting anything back.

What do you want this year? What are your goals? What are your dreams?
What do you really need help with? How can we help you the most?

I bet that with the skills, the knowledge and the people that we all know that 90% of the things we need could happen if we give and serve each other!

We’re your resource – your network to achieving these things! Your ours! Let’s have you do this…

What are some things you want to (can) have, do or achieve in the next 90 days (Mid-April)? Think spiritually or physically. They obviously have to be realistic.

I want you to write it down. I’m going to give a copy of this to everyone next week. We’ll all look it over and see what things on there we could help someone with.

Some other ways that we could serve each other have to do with our Sunday morning gatherings…

• Morning set-up - Once every two months come at 8am to help us set up. That will help some of us that currently come early to be able to have a Sunday off.
• Refreshments - help for Paula.Running the computer for worship and messages.
• Take Down - Help being a part of take down crew with Brian in the Kids Gathering area or Steve up front here.
• Worship - Be a part of the worship team by playing an instrument and/or singing. You can be a part of it on a weekly basis or you can do it every once in awhile – like once a month or once every two or three months.

Other ways you could help… See a need and volunteer to take care of it!

But, if just stop there at giving and serving each other than we’ll miss out on so much that God wants to do in and through us. I don’t know if you realize this or not, but…

Your talents, your gifts that God has given you aren’t just to be used on yourself. They’re to be used to help the world!

Sometimes when we hear someone say we can affect the world it seems so impossible. But that’s because we’re thinking of the whole mass of humanity at one time.

You’re never going to one day bump into the every in the world, at all at once, in one place!

No! You’re going to meet and interact with the world one person at a time and one day at a time. When you think of using your gifts and talents in your day-by-day, one person at time way it seems much more doable!

Dale Carnegie said it like this…

“You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”

But we have to GO and give and serve the world this year!

Listen to why the authors Kirbyjon Caldwell and Walt Kallestad in their book “Entrepreneurial Faith” say we need to go…

"If we can’t reach this generation by remaining within the walls of the church, and all the signs indicate that we can’t, then it’s time for entrepreneurial faith initiatives. We must take the church to the community.

"And it’s not just the twentysomething generation that is being missed. Look around your community and start making a list. There’s the immigrant population, the teen population, those who have grown up with no Christian influence and thus no familiarity with religion, and many, many others.

"Very few of these people will ever be affected by what goes on during a church service, no matter how dynamic, upbeat, and relevant the service is. Those who are following Buddhism or Hinduism, those who claim no religion, those who have been wounded in life (sometimes, even by the church), the lost men, women, boys, and girls in your community will not typically venture into your church.

"They have no reason to think they’ll find any answers there. They still have a tremendous need to experience the awesome reality of God’s love, but they won’t come begging.

"Status-quo ministry says 'open the doors and they’ll come.' That might have worked in the past, but it long ago lost its effectiveness. We can no longer just schedule church services and programs and wait for those who need God to show up.

"We must find creative ways to engage the nonchurchgoers in our communities.

"We must take the gospel out of the church and to the people. We must become entrepreneurs as we practice our faith.

"If we refuse to take this step, we run the very real risk of losing literally millions around us who desperately need and want to experience the love of God and who live right in our neighborhoods.

"Whether you are a pastor, an involved layperson, or a businessperson concerned about the needs in your community, it’s time to start dreaming about how God can use you in new ways. Ways that may be scary at times, but adventures that will be exciting as well."


I say it all the time, so you guys know this. We are the church. YOU are the church. Every week you interact with these people they were talking about – with the world. What will you give them? How will you serve them?

Here are some ideas I want us to try together…

I want to start giving out some water bottles to the people that come to run, play tennis and all RIGHT HERE at the school! Will be doing this in the next couple weeks.

I want to do give out some stuff like that for the students at Stanford. I want to do give out stuff like that to the students at Deanza!

I want to co-ordinate with the Mom’s in our church and offer babysitting to single Moms in our church and outside our church once a month.

I want to help that school in East Palo Alto. I’m going to talk to them and see what they need.

How You Can Do This:

1. I want you to think of some need that you’re passionate about.
2. Someone else to champion it with you. (This is the key thing.)
3. Gather a group of people who have the same passion (people who are a part of us and outside of us). We’ll announce it during one of our Sunday gatherings and see if there’s any one of us who wants to be a part.
4. Pick date on the calendar to gather some people and do your first giving or service project.


I believe that by becoming givers – by blessing others without expecting something back – that God will use this to expand our reach and to cause us to grow spiritually and numerically!

We also have to make sure to give and serve God too…

We talked last week and said there were 3 main things you could give to God and others: your time, your talent or your money.

I told you that all of us are probably generous in at least one of those areas already, but I encouraged you to make it a goal to begin being generous to God and others in one of these other ways and watch what happens!

But you know what God wants the most from you or none of the rest of these things matter?

He wants the same thing you want from someone you care about… He wants your heart! We need to just give God ourselves more this year!

Frank Laubach said this...

"Any hour of any day may be made perfect by merely choosing. It is perfect if one looks toward God that entire hour, waiting for his leadership all through the hour and trying hard to do every tiny thing exactly as God wishes it done, as perfectly as possible. No emotions are necessary. Just the doing of God's will perfectly makes the hour a perfect one. And the results of that one perfect hour, I believe, will echo down through eternity."

Looking back over this last year…

We’ve come a long way since this was all just a dream I felt God put on my heart. I remember when I first met with different ones of you on the core team. (Glen, Aaron, & Dave)

I remember that first night we met at my house on September 8, 2004. We were a group of strangers and an old friend who I hadn’t hung out with in a long time and we had somehow decided to do this together. It was God!

I remember our first Sunday gathering, being not sure who would show up – of anyone would. I remember not many people were here at first. People got lost and there was construction on the Page Mill exit off of 280, so people had to take a longer way around to find us. But we did it!
We ended up with 48 people. A lot of them were family and friends that were here to show there support.

This is what it was like…(Show video -- edited from audio recording)

I believe that this year we’re going to build momentum and we’re going to grow. I mean that numerically that they’ll be more of us, but I also mean it on a personal level. I believe God is going to grow you in new ways this year.

But there are two things that will hold us back if we’re not careful:

1. How you view yourself
2. How you view what God can do

Let's look in our Bibles at Numbers 13 and 14.

God sends tells Moses to choose one leader from each tribe to go on a reconnaissance mission. I won’t go into all their names, Joshua who was Moses attendant since he was young was one of them.

Here we learn that Joshua's name was first known as Hoshea which means "salvation", but Moses changed it to Joshua which means "Yahweh saves”. Joshua is the Hebrew spelling for Jesus (Y'shua)

Listen to what Moses tells them to scout out… in Numbers 13:19-20…

Hear the message below.

(Warning: I was STILL fighting off laryngitis, so my voice is still really raspy!)

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Important Steps To Creating A NEW Year Series: "Two Revolutionary Approaches To Life"

(This is our 2nd message in this series that I spoke on January 15th. This beginning part was interactive with the church. That's why you'll see questions at the begining of this intro.)

Let’s do a quick recap from last week and talk about this together a little…

We began our “Important Steps To Creating A NEW Year” series with the first sermon “The Key To Experiencing A NEW Year”.

I used some common math symbols as an analogy for the choices we have as we begin 2006. You can choose to be greater than (>), you can to be less than (<), or you can choose to be the same (=). Only one of these choices is really a good one and that’s the choice to be greater than!

Some of your experiences and results this year will be out of your control. But, a lot of your experiences and results will be TIED into this choice you make: to repent or not to repent.

Repentance is your key to a NEW Year! Plain and simple it means this…

• Repentance => healing and growth = a new life
• No repentance => more pain and lack of growth = same old same old

What do you think about repentance being the key to change? Does it make sense to you?

Last week, we looked at Mark 1:15 and saw that this message of repentance was what Jesus began his ministry with. This is how the NIV translation words it… “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

You have to stop doing something and start doing something else to really experience change.
You have to turn from something and turn to something for change to begin.


Repentance is a U-Turn. It’s turning from the way you were headed to the opposite direction! But it’s more than that! We saw from John The Baptist in Luke 3:7-9 that repentance is something that’s DONE, not just SAID!

It’s something that produces results or “fruit” in our life!

What do you think about that? How did the thought of repentance being an action not just words resonate with you?


Repentance is tied into faith. You have to believe something new to do something new. What’d you think about the repentance and faith connection?


Real repentance ISN’T just feeling bad and wanting not to be in trouble anymore. That kind of repentance doesn’t lead to any lasting results!

Real repentance is believing that something is bad so you want to stop doing it, OR it’s believing something else is better, so you want to start doing it instead.

Do you see the difference? What do you think about this description of REAL repentance?


Last week, I said that there were two things that can lead us to repent: sadness or gladness. We need to stop settling for where we’re at. We need to become sadder about the areas where we’re less than we should be!

But an even more powerful incentive to repent comes from gladness…

I showed you last week that Jesus said, “Repent and Believe the WHAT news?” Good news!

Get this. Jesus is basically saying...

The time is here! The kingdom of God is now near, so believe this incredibly good news and do a U-Turn!

Any thoughts or comments about sadness and gladness as things that motivate us to repent? Which seems to work the best with you?

I also told you that the only way we’d be able to conquer the greatest areas in our lives through repenting is only going to happen WITH God and each others help.

How has it been trying to live it these ideas last week?
Anyone what to tell us what happened?
What have you learned from it?
Any other questions or comments?

Cool. Thanks for sharing your thought and ideas about this stuff. This interaction will help us all to apply it more in our lives!


Today, I want to talk about the next step to creating a NEW year in 2006. I want to talk about “Two Revolutionary Approaches To Life”.

I saw a story that Bernie May told in his book, "Learning to Trust”. He said this…

For the past forty years Eunice Pike has worked with the Mazatec Indians in south-western Mexico. During this time she has discovered some interesting things about these beautiful people.

For instance, the people seldom wish someone well. Not only that, they are hesitant to teach one another or to share the gospel with each other.

If asked, "Who taught you to bake bread?" the village baker answers, "I just know," meaning he has acquired the knowledge without anyone's help.

Eunice says this odd behavior stems from the Indian's concept of "limited good." They believe there is only so much good, so much knowledge, so much love to go around. To teach another means you might drain yourself of knowledge.

To love a second child means you have to love the first child less. To wish someone well--"Have a good day"--means you have just given away some of your own happiness, which can’t be reacquired.


The way that some people live around us everyday, you’d think they believe the same thing about "limited good"!

But limited good is lie. The opposite is actually true!

When we give, we don’t lose. We GAIN! The apostle Paul said it like this in Acts 20:35 "It is more blessed to give than to receive".

Today, I want to talk to you about a way of living that will change what you do and why you do what you do.

This way of living can be seen in two approaches to living life. These two approaches are so powerful that if everyone in the world used them it could solve many of the world's problems!

What is this way of living I’m talking about?

I want to stick with math symbols as a way to show you this idea this week...

There are two ways to live life:

+ Add to others and this world.
– Subtracting from others and this world.

It basically comes down to living to give or to get. You either live to GIVE to God and others or you live to GET from God and others!


There’s a book by a guy named Matt Rawlins called “The Lottery – A question can change a life”. This book is one of those modern parable books like a lot of business books are today.

In this book, Matt Rawlins tells the story about an eccentric old man who spent the last years of his life trying to find the keys that would save mankind from destroying themselves while creating hope for tomorrow.

He spent his entire fortune, which was a pretty large amount of money and hired thousands of researchers from around the world. He had a computer system built that could compile the data.

No one but himself was allowed to read all of it.

Historical archives were carefully examined. No page was left unturned as these researchers looked for the keys to success in helping humanity move forward. The research was compiled and placed very carefully in two identical books.

After this man died, he gave the two identical books to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC so that they could auction one off to the highest bidder and give the other book away in a Nationwide lottery.

They held this fancy event to have the auction and lottery.

There were wealthy and well known people there who all wanted a chance to buy the one book. All of the major news outlets where there to see who got the two books and they also wanted to find out what was in the books.

They held the auction and a really wealthy guy paid a lot of money to get the first book. They then had the lottery. Anyone around the country was allowed to enter their name so everyone was watching to see if they would win.

They finally chose a name and it was a guy named Mark Stephen who won. All the media started trying to contact him and see what he was going to do. He was trippin’ and didn’t know what he was going to do at first, but finally decided to at least go down and see what was in the book. They brought him to a bank vault to see the book.

When he opened the book he was totally shocked!

On the first page was a simple question mark. That was it! All the other pages were blank.

At first, he laughed and thought it was a joke. But he quickly realizes it’s not and the whole rest of the book is about this journey to discover what this QUESTION MARK means.

He eventually learns the message and it’s what I want you to understand today…

He discovered that succeeding in life is all about asking the right questions!

He learned that questions create a focus and because of the focus of the questions we don’t see other things that might be important.

The questions we ask set up what we find. The author says it in this was through the character Mark…

“The right question, at the right time, in the right place, with the right people is one of the most powerful tools in the hand of any man, woman or God.”

If we change one simple question in our lives then amazing things will begin to happen!


Let me read forward of the book "The Daily Drucker" (which is a book filled with different quotes, concepts and ideas from a man who was a the late management guru Peter Drucker) to show you an example of this change.

This is what it says…

"His generosity of spirit explains much of Drucker’s immense influence. I reflected back on his work, ‘The Effective Executive’, and his admonition to replace the quest for success with the quest for contribution. The critical question is not, 'How can I achieve?' but 'What can I contribute?'"

We need to go from “What can I get?” to “What can I give?”!

Listen to what Jesus says in Luke 6:38…

Hear the message below.
(Warning: I was STILL fighting off laryngitis, so my voice is still really raspy!)

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The Key To Experiencing A NEW Year!

When I was in Jr. High and High School I lived in Foster City in an apartment complex called Shelter Cove.

It was a cool place to live, cause there were a lot of other kids there who were in my age-range. I still am friends with some of them today. Brian Jablonski, right here, is one of them.

There was a guy, whose name I can’t remember right now, and he was older than the rest of us. He ended up getting a Go-Kart.

One day he took it out to give us rides on it.

We needed a place that had a lot of room to get good speed and really test it out, so we went to the parking lot of this Catholic Church. It was right behind our apartments on the corner of Foster City Blvd and Beach Park Blvd.

The main guy, who’s Go-Kart it was, would drive and different people would sit on this little part on the back and hold on.

Everything was going good until the accident happened.

One of our friends, Brian Watkins, sat on little back part and was holding on while the Go-Kart driver was flying around the church’s parking lot.

At first, he was laughing and everything was cool, then something went wrong. Somehow, Brian’s leg slipped off the back of the Go-Kart and got wedge under it.

He started screaming as the asphalt began ripping his pants and grinding into his leg.

The guy driving didn’t know what happened, because he couldn’t hear Brian screaming, over the sound of the revving engine - so He just kept driving.

It probably only took a minute or two, but it seemed like an eternity before we got him to realize what was happening and stop the Go-Kart.

By that time, the damage was already done.

Brian’s ankle, which was the part that got caught under the Go-Kart, was totally ripped open and tendons or ligaments were exposed.

I don’t remember what happened next, but somehow, someone ran to call 911 (didn’t have cell phones back then) and the ambulance came and took him to the hospital. He ended up being ok, but it took pretty good while for his leg to heal.

I always wondered…

What would have happened if we couldn’t get the drivers attention as quickly as we did and he kept driving for even just a couple minutes longer?

Or...

What would have happened if we could have gotten his attention right away? How hurt would Brian have been? Would he have been that hurt at all?

When you’re doing something that’s causing damage to you, or someone else, you want to stop as soon as you can, right?

This story reminds me of the one key thing that will help you experience a NEW year in 2006.

If you DO this thing, then you will experience new things – see new results. If you DON’T do this thing, then you will experience the same or less than you did last year.

Are you ready to hear what it is?

The key to experiencing a new year is: repentance!

That’s what I want to talk about today. But, before some of you put up a wall and start resisting the idea. Listen…

I don’t want you to think of it ONLY in the usual way. *Think of it as method – a technique – for releasing change in your life!

This one method can be used in any and every area of your life and it will have the same result: NEWNESS!

I want to share a quote from Jim Rohn right now. Let me remind you who he is. He’s a famous business philosopher. Most people don’t know it, but he’s also a Christian and a Pastors’ kid. He’s one of my favorite writers.

I’ve read this quote to you before, but I want you to hear it again as begin this year and this series. He says this…

“Each of us has two distinct choices to make about what we will do with our lives.

The first choice we can make is to be less than we have the capacity to be. To earn less. To have less. To read less and think less. To try less and discipline ourselves less. These are the choices that lead to an empty life. These are the choices that, once made, lead to a life of constant apprehension instead of a life of wondrous anticipation.

"And the second choice? To do it all! To become all that we can possibly be. To read every book that we possibly can. To earn as much as we possibly can. To give and share as much as we possibly can. To strive and produce and accomplish as much as we possibly can. All of us have the choice.

"To do or not to do. To be or not to be. To be all or to be less or to be nothing at all.

"Like the tree, it would be a worthy challenge for us all to stretch upward and outward to the full measure of our capabilities. Why not do all that we can, every moment that we can, the best that we can, for as long as we can?

"Our ultimate life objective should be to create as much as our talent and ability and desire will permit. To settle for doing less than we could do is to fail in this worthiest of undertakings.”

These are the choices we have in front of us as we begin 2006:

• you can choose to be greater than (>)
• you can to be less than (<)
• or you can choose to be the same (=)

Only one of these choices is really a good one.

The rest of them aren’t. It’s obvious that choosing “less than” is bad, but choosing to be the same person as you were last year isn’t much better.

Choosing to be the same is to choose stagnation. It’s the easy choice, but it’s a bad one. In fact, staying the same is usually is what happens by accident or default.

Pastor Timothy Satryan said it this way in a recent e-newsletter…

“If you were organized in 2005, you will begin 2006 being organized, too. The same can be said about being motivated, disciplined, involved, prayerful, spiritual, or any other quality or characteristic. Change in life doesn’t happen simply because the old calendar has been replaced with a new one.”

2006 will be one of these things for you:

>, <, or =.

Which set of these choices will you choose?

Some of what you experience this year and some of the results you get this year will be out of your control.

But A LOT of what you experience and the results you get will be TIED into this choice you make: to repent or not to repent.

When Jesus started his ministry he began going around teaching this one thing. Look at what he says in Mark 1:15...

Hear the message below...
(Warning: I was fighting off laryngitis, so my voice is a little raspier than normal. Sometimes I sound like I'm going through puberty again!)

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"5 Minute Christmas Thought" PLUS A BONUS :)

Since we aren't able to gather tomorrow on Christmas, I've recorded a "5 minute Christmas Thought" (actually 4:52).

Take some time today or tomorrow to get away by yourself and listen to this and really think about what Christmas is all about.

Here's what you'll hear:

• Two gifts/reminders that God gave us that first Christmas that we still need today more that ever
• Why if you believe in God you have to belive in the miraculous
• What Abraham, David, Mary, Elizabeth and the shepherds have in common and why that's good news to you and me

Here is it for you to hear online or download for your Ipod or Mp3 player:

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P.S. My son Jack, who is 4 and 1/2 years old, saw me editing my "5 minute Christmas Thought" and asked if he could record one for the kids.

So we recorded one! His thought actually ended up being a prayer and only 2:45, but it's pretty funny and cute!

Here's Jack's "3 Minute Christmas Thought" for the kids!

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REMEMBER:
We won't meet on New Year's day either!

Our next Sunday gathering is January 8th. If you've never come to hang with us on a Sunday, then think about trying it out for 2006!

"Lessons From Narnia" Series: The Unexpected Visitor

(This is the third/last message in the series spoken on Dec. 18.)




















I want to start with a story I found...

Long ago, there was a wise and good king who ruled in Persia. He loved his people. He wanted to know how they lived. He wanted to know about their hardships.

So this is what he did...

He dressed in the clothes of a working man or a beggar, and went to the homes of the poor. No one he visited ever realized that he was their ruler.

Once he visited a very poor man who lived in a cellar. He ate the coarse food the poor man ate and he spoke kind words to him.

Then he left. Later, he visited the poor man again and revealed his identity to him. He said, "I am your king!" The king thought that at that moment the man would definitely ask for some gift or favor, but he didn't.

Instead the poor man said, "You left your palace and your glory to visit me in this dark, dreary place. You ate the course food I ate. You brought gladness to my heart! To others you have given your rich gifts. To me you have given yourself!"

The man was overwhelmed by this unexpected visitor!

----

In “The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe”, Aslan, the great lion who created Narnia enters into their world. He comes to take back Narnia from the control of the evil White Witch.

I love how C.S. Lewis describes the way Narnia is under the Witch’s control! He says it’s “always winter but never Christmas.” But that all begins to change when Aslan comes!

Aslan is another unexpected visitor.

• What if God, the author of life, decided to enter his own story and become a character in it?
• What if he did it, like Aslan, to redeem back his people and to forever guarantee the plot line of His story (history) would be fulfilled as he originally planned?

In a manger, over two thousand years ago, born as a baby to a young teenage couple, the ultimate unexpected visitor came.

The Bible tells us the most amazing miracle happened: God stepped into our world and entered this story.

Today, I want to look at some of the parallels between “The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe” and the Bible.

I also want to remind you today that we live on what Christian author J.B. Phillips called “The Visited Planet”.

We're going to see that God came not only to show us the truth and redeem us, but he came to expose our greatest dreams as laughably too small!

I'll tell you more about what I mean by that later, but, first, listen to how Matthew describes this unexpected visit…Matthew 1:18-25 NLT

Hear the message below...

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"Lessons From Narnia" Series: You Are What You Eat

(This is the second message in the series spoken on Dec. 11.)














There’s a billboard on Hwy 101 for Kaiser Hospital and it says this…

“You are what you eat. Who will you be today?”

Your physical health is tied to what you eat today and tomorrow. If you eat healthy foods you will be healthy. If you eat unhealthy foods you will eventually become unhealthy.

This isn’t true just about the food you eat, but also about other things you consume!

The information we consume, the experiences we consume, what we consume with our eyes and our ears, what we consume with our time, our energy and our thoughts WILL affect us emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually.

We are what we eat! Our results in life come from what we feed on!

Now, if we only hungered in all these different ways for good things this wouldn’t be a problem. But, the apostle Paul describes our situation in Romans 7:14-21…(NLT)

“14The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. 15I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. 16I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. 17But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.
18I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. 19When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. 20But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. 21It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.”

Today, we’ll look at the character Edmund from “The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe”.

When we look at this kid and his choices we’ll see a reflection of ourselves!

But, before we start I want to make sure something is clear.

I want to say some thing up front about the book and the movie “The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe”.

It’s not a Christian book or a Christian movie!

Here. Let me tell you what it says about this on Dummies.com…

“Perhaps the single most common question about The Chronicles of Narnia asks whether Lewis wrote the series as an allegory. After all, even if your biblical knowledge is limited to a few Sunday school classes in third grade, you probably notice that Aslan has many similarities to Jesus Christ. If Lewis added that symbolism on purpose, does that mean that everything in Narnia represents something in the Bible?

"C.S. Lewis makes clear that he didn't write the Narnian Chronicles as a biblical allegory. But you may be asking: How can this be true given the obvious symbolism used throughout the series? In order to understand Lewis's side of the story, you need to understand the difference between allegory and something he called supposal."

Then it goes on to say…

“Although Lewis makes it clear that The Chronicles of Narnia isn't an allegory, he doesn't deny that some symbolism was written into the series. But, to understand his approach, you need to recognize that Lewis differentiates allegory from something he calls supposal. In a December 1959 letter to a young girl named Sophia Storr, he explains the difference:

"I don't say. 'Let us represent Christ as Aslan.' I say, 'Supposing there was a world like Narnia, and supposing, like ours, it needed redemption, let us imagine what sort of Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection Christ would have there.'

"Allegory and supposal aren't identical devices, according to Lewis, because they deal with what's real and what's unreal quite differently.

"In an allegory, the ideas, concepts, and even people being expressed are true, but the characters are make-believe. They always behave in a way reflective of the underlying concepts they're representing. A supposal is much different; the fictional character becomes "real" within the imaginary world, taking on a life of its own and adapting to the make-believe world as necessary."

"If, for example, you accept the supposal of Aslan as true, then Lewis says, 'He would really have been a physical object in that world as He was in Palestine, and His death on the Stone Table would have been a physical event no less than his death on Calvary.'"

Remember this is the man that we looked at last week, who was once a dedicated atheist, but whose worldview changed when he chose to believe in and follow Jesus.

Lewis had a lot to say and he believed that fairy tales and myths are sometimes the best way to say what needs to be said.

He wrote this to a girl named Anne a little bit more about this whole supposal idea…

"I think you will probably see that there is a deeper meaning behind it. The whole Narnian story is about Christ. That is to say, I asked myself ‘Supposing that there really was a world like Narnia and supposing it had (like our world) gone wrong and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?’

"The stories are my answers. Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought He would become a Talking Beast there, as He became a man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; (b) Christ is called ‘The Lion of Judah’ in the Bible; (c) I’d been having strange dreams about lions when I began writing the work. The whole series works out like this.”

So these stories are not Christian. They covered themes and issues that are real, they’re not something where everything that’s true in them is true of Jesus.

That’s the cool thing about these stories is that if you’re a Christ-follower you can like them and if you’re an atheist you can like them!

Because they cover themes that everyone cares about: good vs. evil, temptation, fulfilling our destiny, etc…

Plus! What kids would want to find a doorway to a magical world where you are the hero they’ve been waiting for?

Alright, now that we have that out of the way, let’s look our twin brother Edmund.

Hear the message below...

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"Lessons From Narnia" Series: Your Worldview Changes Your World

(This is the first message in the series spoken on Dec. 4.)


I have two pairs of sunglasses here. Imagine something with me for a second…

Each of these sunglasses affects the way you see the world. If you put on this pair it will tint your view of the world in one way. If you put this pair on it will tint your view of the world in another way.

You need to be careful, because once you choose a pair to put on they will affect everything you see, hear, and experience. The way you see and feel about things will be different based on which pair of glasses you choose.

You might think what I just described is far-fetched, but these sunglasses represent something real!

These sunglasses represent two worldviews – two ways of looking at life.


Secular worldview: The only thing that is real is what I can see, taste, touch, smell, and feel. Reality is only what I can measure, test, and reproduce in a lab. The only reality is this physical world and what I experience while I am alive. This view has no room for God in it.

Spiritualistic worldview: There is a reality beyond my 5 senses. There is reality beyond what I can understand or explain. Reality exits beyond this physical world and there will be an existence beyond this life. This view believes in the existence of God.


These two worldviews basically come down to one question and how we answer it. The question of “Is there a god is?”

Paul Little in his book, “Know WHY You Believe” says this “There is in human existence no more profound question demanding an answer.”

Your answer to this one question really does affect the way you see, hear and experience everything in life.

There’s really not a neutral choice.

You either believe there is a spiritual world and a God or you don’t. Claiming you don’t know if there is a God will by default cause you to see life from the secular worldview.

Once you choose your point of view it will affect how you perceive and respond to this world and your life.

I found a perfect example of how these two worldviews totally change you and the outcome of your life in a book called, “The Question Of God”. It’s written by a man named Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr.

In the book, he contrasts the life of C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud. He shows how they both started as atheists and shared many of the same views, but C.S. Lewis turned off that path towards God.

Nicholi sets up the book in a way where it presents a fictional debate between these two great men on topics like: the problem of pain and suffering, love, sex, and the ultimate meaning of life and death.

You might wonder well know is this guy? What gives him authority to write on this subject or these two men?

Dr. Nicholi is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He has served on the Harvard Medical School faculty for the past 25 years, where he teaches a popular course which this book is based on. He also teaches an undergraduate course at Harvard College.

Dr. Nicholi is editor and co-author of one of the leading textbooks on psychiatry used in universities and medical schools throughout the world.

When he says something he know what he’s talking about!

C.S. Lewis has been called one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. He’s also known as one of the greatest apologists (or defenders) of the Christian faith…

But many people don’t know, is that for about 18 years of his life he was an atheist. He had a secular view of the world. During that time he had many of the same opinions that Freud did about life.

Some people also don’t know that Freud started out his life in a religious family and that when he was young he had believed and knew the Bible really well.

Here’s what I want to do…

I want to let you see a quick look at both of their stories so you can sit on the sidelines and watch as they choose which worldview they’re going to wear.

Let’s look at Freud first.

Hear the message below...

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On The Periphery Of Greatness

Glen Davis spoke from 2 Samuel 23:20.

He told the story about Benaiah who killed two sons of Ariel of Moab and went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit on a snowy day.

Glen said that we might be surprised when we get to heaven to see that some people who got a lot of attention and honor here, won’t receive much in heaven. There will also be people who got little attention and honor on earth who will receive much in heaven!

You never know God's opinion of your story, so focus on his opinion and not on other people’s opinion!

Hear the message below...

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The Unexpected Benefits Of Prayer

Today, I want to talk about the opportunity of a lifetime that people pass up daily! What opportunity? Prayer. The opportunity to talk to God!

What if I told you I had an appointment set for you to meet the President face-to-face for an hour? Would you go and meet with him? Yeah you would!

Even if you didn’t like him you would! Why? He’s the president! It’s an honor to talk to him. You’d go just so you brag about it!

What if it was someone else? What if it was the chance to meet your favorite movie/TV/music star or athlete? Wouldn’t you jump at the chance?

You and I can talk to God this minute or any minute we choose. We can tell him what we’re thinking or feeling. We can ask him for something or ask him for help?

Why is the chance to talk to God passed up so much by us?

I’m sure most of us have heard reasons why we pray and I don’t want to just repeat what you know already. Today I want to show you some unexpected benefits of prayer.

Let’s look at the first one…

Hear the message below:

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"Extreme Faith Makeover: The Reason For Freedom"

I heard of a story that Thomas Costain tells in his history, “The Three Edwards”.

He describes the life of Raynald III, a 14th century duke in what is now Belguim.
Raynald was extremely overweight and commonly called by his Latin nickname Crassus which means “fat”.

After a violent argument, Raynald’s younger brother Edward led a successful revolt against him. Edward captured Raynald but did not kill him. Instead, Edward had a room built around Raynald in the Nieuwkerk castle and promised him he could regain his title and property as soon as he was able to leave the room.

This wouldn’t have been too hard for most people since the room had several windows and a door that was pretty much normal size. Not only that, none of the windows or the door was locked or barred. So why couldn’t he escape?

The problem was Raynald’s size. To regain his freedom, he needed to lose weight. But Edward knew his older brother well, so each day he sent over a whole bunch of different, delicious foods. Instead of dieting his way out of prison, Raynald grew fatter!

When Duke Edward was accused of cruelty, he would just say, “My brother is not a prisoner. He can leave whenever he wants!”

Raynald stayed in that room for ten years and wasn’t released until after Edward died in battle. By then his health was so ruined he died within a year -- a prisoner of his own appetite.”

Many of us know what it’s like to be a prisoner of our own desires. We each have areas of weakness that we’ve struggled in for years. Today, we’re going to discover answers to two questions: “Why did Jesus set us free?” and “How can we experience this freedom more in our everyday lives, so we can be freer in these areas of weaknesses?” Before we get into today’s message let’s do a quick review of what we looked at already…

The idea of grace is what makes Christianity different than any other religion.

Most other religions are based on what you can do to get to God/heaven, but Christianity is all about what God did to get to us!

We’ve seen that grace doesn’t mean God overlooks or ignores your sin. He doesn’t just let you get away with it. God NEVER overlooks sin! The punishment still had to happen. The payment for sin still had to be made. God was the just one to do it! That’s what God did through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

This is our 5th message in our 6 week look at the book of Galatians. It's a book that is all about the about what grace is and how to live in it. I'm calling this series “Extreme Faith Makeover”.

So far we’ve seen that when you add anything to the gospel you actually subtract from it.

We saw that sooner or later every believer discovers that they are still a sinner. This leads us to either cling to the law (rules) and become slaves again or run to Jesus and become free. How you respond to this discovery of your own sinfulness will reveal your true opinion of grace!

We also saw that the same way we started in this walk with Jesus is the same way we finish this journey with him. The purpose of the law was to protect us and to show us how guilty we are so that it would to lead us to Jesus.

Last week, we saw that there is a life-giving equality in Jesus. Whatever was once to your disadvantage doesn’t hold God back from giving you grace and using you!

We saw that it doesn’t matter what race you are, what social status you have, or what sex you are. You have an equal chance and an equal opportunity with God!

Nothing can hold you back from God’s love and all that he wants to do in your life. In Jesus, we’re all equal! We saw that our faith makes us become that offspring of Abraham’s - heirs to the promise!

We also saw that through Jesus we have gone from being slaves to the law to becoming heirs of God’s blessing and promises! If you didn’t get a chance to hear any of these messages, I’d encourage you to listen to them there or download them and burn them on a CD to hear later!

Today we’re going to look at Galatians 5. Go ahead and turn there in your Bibles right now. As you do, let me remind of some things…

Who Paul Was
Written by the Apostle Paul a man who knew what it was like to live his life trying to live according to the law. He was a Pharisee and persecuted the church, but, it all changed when he had a miraculous experience on the road to Damascus. Jesus appeared to him, revealed who he was and helped Paul to understand grace.

Who Were The Galatians?
“Galatians was written by Paul to congregations he had founded in the region of Galatia in central Asia Minor. (Show pictures of two areas they could be.)

Reason For The Letter
Some Jews had come and attacked Paul as a person (1) and what he taught (2). They said that Paul hadn’t given them all the information they needed to be saved. These people told the Galatians that they had to come under the law and be circumcised (live by the old rules) in order to be saved. They said Paul wasn’t a real apostle.

Last week I ended the message at Galatians 4:7, because we ran out of time. I’m not going to go cover all the verses that we missed last week, because I want to stay on schedule and end the series next Sunday. But I do want to look at the last section.

Let’s look at Galatians 4:21-31… (NLT)

Listen to me, you who want to live under the law. Do you know what the law really says? The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave-wife and one from his freeborn wife. The son of the slave-wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise.

Now these two women serve as an illustration of God's two covenants. Hagar, the slave-wife, represents Mount Sinai where people first became enslaved to the law. And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery. But Sarah, the free woman, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. And she is our mother.

That is what Isaiah meant when he prophesied, "Rejoice, O childless woman! Break forth into loud and joyful song, even though you never gave birth to a child. For the woman who could bear no children now has more than all the other women!"

And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac. And we who are born of the Holy Spirit are persecuted by those who want us to keep the law, just as Isaac, the child of promise, was persecuted by Ishmael, the son of the slave-wife.

But what do the Scriptures say about that? "Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the family inheritance with the free woman's son." So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, obligated to the law. We are children of the free woman, acceptable to God because of our faith.

Paul uses Hagar and Sarah here to symbolize God’s two covenants.

Hagar represents one way to try and become right with God and gain his acceptance and Sarah represents the other.

Hagar = Abraham’s human effort to fulfill and accomplish the God’s promise.= Effort
Sarah = God’s miraculous fulfillment of his own promise. = Gift

This is what I want you to see…

**Salvation is as much a miracle as God causing Abraham and Sarah to have a child in their old age. Our own salvation can’t be accomplished by us!**

What is a miracle? One definition…

Miracle: “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.”

That’s what salvation is: a miracle! And salvation comes to us through God’s new covenant with us.

Listen to how Bruce Shelley describes "The Difference Between A Contract And A Covenant". He says…

“In modern times we define a host of relations by contracts. These are usually for goods or services and for hard cash. The contract, formal or informal, helps to specify failure in these relationships. “The Lord did not establish a contract with Israel or with the church. He created a covenant. There is a difference.

"Contacts are broken when one of the parties fails to keep his promise. If, let us say, a patient fails to keep an appointment with a doctor, the doctor is not obligated to call the house and inquire, "Where were you? Why didn't you show up for your appointment?" He simply goes on to his next patient and has his appointment secretary take note of the patient who failed to keep the appointment. The patient may find it harder the next time to see the doctor. He broke an informal contract.

“According to the Bible, however, the Lord asks: 'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!' (Isaiah 49:15)

“The Bible indicates the covenant is more like the ties of a parent to her child than it is a doctor's appointment. If a child fails to show up for dinner, the parent's obligation, unlike the doctor's, isn't canceled. The parent finds out where the child is and makes sure he's cared for. One member's failure does not destroy the relationship.

"A covenant puts no conditions on faithfulness. It is the unconditional commitment to love and serve.”

God has made a new unconditional commitment with us through Jesus. This miracle of salvation will never be taken back! And it’s a miracle that we can never make happen OR pay for!

I heard a story about the reaction of a little orphan girl when a lady came to adopt her. It reminds me of the reaction that we have when God adopts us….

There was a ripple of excitement all through the orphanage, for a great lady had come to take little Jane home with her. The girl herself was bewildered with the thought.

"Do you want to go with me and be my child?" the lady asked in gentle tones. "I don't know," said Jane timidly.

"But I'm going to give you beautiful clothes and a lot of things, a room of your own with beautiful bed and table and chairs."

After a moment's silence, the little one said anxiously: "But what am I to do for all this?" The lady burst into tears. "Only to love me, and be my child," she said as she folded the little girl in her arms.

We can’t make ourselves worthy of being adopted by God. We can’t pay him back. It’s just a miracle done out of love! All we can do in return is love Him, and be His children.

Let’s now look at Galatians 5:1-15...

“So Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ cannot help you. I'll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey all of the regulations in the whole law of Moses.

For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace.

But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive everything promised to us who are right with God through faith. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, it makes no difference to God whether we are circumcised or not circumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

You were getting along so well. Who has interfered with you to hold you back from following the truth? It certainly isn't God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. But it takes only one wrong person among you to infect all the others—a little yeast spreads quickly through the whole batch of dough!

I am trusting the Lord to bring you back to believing as I do about these things. God will judge that person, whoever it is, who has been troubling and confusing you. Dear brothers and sisters, if I were still preaching that you must be circumcised—as some say I do—why would the Jews persecute me? The fact that I am still being persecuted proves that I am still preaching salvation through the cross of Christ alone.

I only wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate (castrate) themselves.

For you have been called to live in freedom—not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.”

Charles Swindoll, in his book I’ve mentioned before, “The Grace Awakening” tells this story…

”It was on New Year’s Day 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was publicly stated, but it was not until December 18, 1865, that the Constitution made those convictions official… Headlines in newspapers in virtually every state had the same message “Slavery Legally Abolished”.

“And yet something happened that many would never have expected. The vast majority of slaves in the South who were legally freed continued to live as slaves! Most of them went right on living as though nothing had happened. Though free, the Blacks lived virtually unchanged lives throughout the Reconstruction Period."

Swindoll later says this…

“I call this tragic. A war had been fought. A president had been assassinated. An amendment to the Constitution had now been signed into law. Once enslaved men, women and children were now legally emancipated. Yet amazingly, many continued living in fear and squalor. In a context of hard-earned freedom, slaves chose to remain as slaves. Cruel and brutal though many of their owners were, black men and women chose to keep serving the same old master until they died.

"They were a few brave exceptions, but in many parts of the country you’d never known that slavery had been officially abolished and that they had been emancipated. That’s the way plantation owners wanted it. They maintained the age old philosophy, ‘Keep’em ignorant and you keep ‘em in the field’”

Many Christ followers live that way today!

We keep living as slaves of our old masters even though Jesus has emancipated us! Paul says we’be been set free from two kinds of slavery:

1. Slavery to the law: In verse 1 Paul said, “So Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.” That means you need to stop judging yourself and trying to make yourself righteous by what you do! You’re free!

The second kind of slavery we’ve been freed from is…

2. Slavery to sinning: In verse 13 Paul said, “For you have been called to live in freedom—not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love.” That means you should stop running towards sin and enslaving yourself to your desires! You’re free!

We need to live in this freedom from these two things and quit living as their slaves! I want you to notice this… We not only need to be told to be (live) free, but we need to be told to stay free!

Voltaire said “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” That’s true for us! We love our sins so much that we don’t want to let them go! Can you imagine someone that would want to enslave themselves again AFTER they were FREE? But it happens all the time!

According to a report from the BBC 60% of prisoners in United States will eventually commit a crime again and end up back in prison! We’re the same way!

Legalistic Christians will tell you that’s why you have to have rules to live by or you will just be free to sin all you want!

But in verse 3, Paul tells us basically that if you want to live by the law, then Jesus is of no use to you. You pick one area to claim yourself righteous by and you will have to fulfill it all.

Not only that Paul says the scariest thing he’s said in this whole letter in verse 4… “For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace.”

Trying to be righteous through obeying rules will alienate you from Jesus. You will fall away from Grace. Think about this…

Grace doesn't need the law, but the law needs grace! Grace is enough to justify us alone, but the law never is!

You might think, “Well if I’m free why don’t I feel free? Why isn’t it easy to stop sinning?” You need to understand something here…

Being set free from the law and from sinning doesn’t mean you’re now forced to make the right choice. It just means that you have the chance to choose it! Let me tell you the way I’ve been thinking about how it personally applies to me…

I have been set free from the law so that I could be free from condemnation, NOT so I could be a slave to sin. When I try to justify myself by relying on the law I am relying on myself NOT on what Jesus did.

So why were you and I set free? What are we supposed to do with this freedom?

I was set free so I could serve God and my neighbor in love, which I was unable to do before. If I live my life out from under the law, then I won’t satisfy my sinful desires because I’ll be relying on Jesus constantly and never on my own strength. That’s what Paul tells us in V. 16-18.

I need to, by faith, constantly rely on Him for my righteousness (v. 5). It is a constant submission and trust in God. The original Fall of humankind happened because Adam and Eve rebelled from God to rely on themselves.

What we’re talking about here is a turning from the fall, back to a life of based on reliance on God! We will do a better job at fulfilling the law when we live our lives out of love than when we live them out of duty.

Think about a marriage. Would you rather have a marriage based on rules or based on love? Everyone wants one based on LOVE!

When you have a marriage based on love someone is doing something for you because they want to not because they have to! And in a marriage based on love you don’t have to worry about being accepted by your spouse ONLY if you obey every rule, instead you’re accepted and loved, so you WANT to please them!

It’s that love can conquer selfish desires and help you to do things for your spouse that you normally wouldn’t do! That’s what Paul’s been talking about this whole time...

• Grace VS. Law
• Living for God out of love VS. Duty
• Doing things for God because you want to VS. HAVE to

It’s that love that can inspire us and give us incentive to deny ourselves and live for God and others.

We now choose not to sin NOT because we have to or are afraid of punishment. We can now choose NOT to sin because of God’s love for us and what he’s done for us, -- because we want to show him our love back and show the love we’ve received to others!

Michael Horton in a book called, "The Agony of Deceit said it like this…

“Someone confronted Martin Luther, upon the Reformer's rediscovery of the biblical doctrine of justification, with the remark, 'If this is true, a person could simply live as he pleased!' 'Indeed!' answered Luther. 'Now, what pleases you?'

"Augustine was the great preacher of grace during the fourth and fifth centuries. Although his understanding of the doctrine of justification did not have the fine-tuned precision of the Reformers, Augustine's response on this point was similar to Luther's.

"He said that the doctrine of justification led to the maxim, 'Love God and do as you please.'

"Because we have misunderstood one of the gospel's most basic themes, Augustine's statement looks to many like a license to indulge one's sinful nature, but in reality it touches upon the motivation the Christian has for his actions.

"The person who has been justified by God's grace has a new, higher, and nobler motivation for holiness than the shallow, hypocritical self-righteousness or fear that seems to motivate so may religious people today.”

Paul says it in verse 6 “What is important is faith expressing itself in love.” And in verses 13-14 Paul says, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

This is the only way to begin conquering sin and not using our freedom from the law to make ourselves a slave to sin! Paul calls this living “a new life in the Holy Spirit”.

Let’s look at v. 16-26…

“So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants.

"And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict.

"But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God."

(NOTE: V. 21 The word translated “living” means “what one does repeatedly, continually, or habitually.” This is not talking about someone who falls into a sin once, but someone who falls in it, rolls around in it and decides to live there!)

"But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or irritate one another, or be jealous of one another.”

Paul says when you live by the Spirit that your life will stop producing the fruit (results) of your sinful nature, but instead you’ll start producing the fruit of the Spirit = results the Spirit produces!

I used to always wonder what it meant to “live in the Spirit” or how I could actually do this. One day after reading through Galatians it suddenly hit me!

I wrote this in my journal on October 10, 1993…

“What is living by the Spirit?Living my life out from under the law in faith in Jesus only, for my salvation and righteousness. It is the absence of performance and the presence of submission. It is living out my freedom in Christ in love towards him and my neighbor. It is letting the old man stay dead!”

We will never be sinless in this life, but we can sin less! We don’t have to be prisoner our our own appetites anymore like Raynald III in the story we started with!

Salvation is a complete miracle! It’s something we can never add to or achieve on our own. We have been set free from the law and from our own sinful nature, so we need to live that way and stay in that freedom.

The reason not to sin now is out of love for God. We’ve been set free so we can serve God and others. When we do that we’ll fulfill the law better than any rule ever could ever get us to.

MY CHALLENGE:
This week I want you to try living this way this week. Realize that Jesus paid the full price for your sins and you’re completely forgiven and free from condemnation. Live for God this week, not because you have to, but because you WANT to. I’m going to be doing that this week.

I have one other new thing we can try…You can go to my blog at ChurchGatherer.Blogspot.com and I’ll post up other thoughts and ideas about trying to live this out. You can click on the “comments” section of any post and add a question or your experience or thoughts. It’s a way to continue this conversation this week!

Next week:

• We’ll look at how we can help each other when we fall in sin.
• We’ll take a look at one HUGELY IMPORTANT reason at why we should be careful not to use our freedom to sin.