Accepting One Another

As Christians, we are to demonstrate acceptance of one another. That means no judgment and noo condemnation. Romans 8:1 says: “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”  If Christ doesn't condemn me, I should not condemn others. Ephesians 4:32 says: “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

We are to be kind to one another, forgive one another, and be tenderhearted to one another. Isn't that exactly what Jesus did to the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. When she was brought to Jesus, He had every right to condemn her. But he didn't. After her accusers left one by one, he said in John 8:10-11: “Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” He didn't condone her behavior, but neither did he condemn her.

The people close to us need the same from us. Even if we can't condone what someone does, we don't have to heap condemnation on them. What I am saying is that I need to give others the luxury of being less than perfect, since I am less that perfect.

I would like to encourage each of us to make sure that our spouse, our children, our parents, our family members, our co-workers, our fellow church members, and our friends know that when they are less than perfect, even when they do something really dumb, we won't abandon you. We will accept them as we are accepted by Jesus. People need to feel that acceptance.

The Principle of Relationships

Motivational guru, Tony Robbins, has said, "The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships." This is certainly in agreement with the Bible. The Bible teaches us that no matter how successful we may become, if our relationships are miserable, we will be miserable.

In the book, A Model-Free Approach to the Study of Subjective Well Being, the authors identified the primary components of a happy life as being: 1) the number of friends,
 2) the closeness of friends, 3) the closeness of family, and, 4) the relationships with one's co-workers and neighbors. In other words, relationships are the key to happiness.

We were made for relationships. Especially as Christians, we are encouraged to live in love and peace with our fellow believers.. King David wrote in Psalm 133:1: “How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!” Jesus even goes so far as to say our love for one another is the identifying mark of our relationship with Him! He said in John 13:35: “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

John must have understood what Jesus was saying, because he would later write in his first epistle that if our horizontal relationships with one another are not in order, our vertical relationship with God cannot be in order. There is not question that God wants us to walk in fellowship with one another. A big part of the Christian life is expressed in how you relate to others. John Wesley once said, “The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.”  Wesley is saying that we were made for relationships.


Solomon talks about this as well in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10: “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. 

This week we are going to look at how we can go deeper in our relationships. Solomon said, “Someone who falls alone is in real trouble”, so we are going to look at four things you can do to ensure that you are developing proper relationships with others. And these four things apply to every relationship in our lives...our marriage, our family, our work, and neighbors.

Cultivate Your Field

The second process in reaping a harvest is cultivating your field. After you have planted your seed, you don't just leave it alone until harvest. You work the field.


This is the daily part of the process. Paul said, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7) What are you sowing on a daily basis? Harvesting is not a matter of saying what you want. The real determining factor is what kind of actions are you willing to take daily to reap your harvest.

David talks about God giving us the desires of our hearts. Then he adds in Psalm 37:5: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass." This is more than just a one time commitment. It is a daily follow-through with consistent actions. It is answering the question, "What am I doing today to contribute to this objective?" and then doing it!

Your life is made up of thousands and thousands of 24-hour units, and it is lived out one day at a time. The only way to create a great life for yourself is to do it one day at a time. Too many people are hoping to get there in one magnificent leap from the valley to the mountaintop. Steve May writes that many people say things like: "Maybe I'll win the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes; maybe my wife will suddenly change overnight and all of her faults will disappear and she'll decide my faults aren't so bad after all; maybe 10 new clients will call me tomorrow right out of the blue; maybe my metabolism with increase and I'll start losing weight without any effort; maybe God will zap me with fire from above and I'll have a bubbly feeling all the time..."

People want to get to the life of their dreams in one magnificent leap, and that's not how it works. It's a journey, a day-by-day, step-by-step journey. After you plan your harvest, you must cultivate your field. In order to receive the desires of your heart, you must commit your way to the Lord: live consistently for him day-in and day-out. This is how you create a deeper life for yourself.

Planning Your Harvest

Paul wrote in Galatians 6:7: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The analogy of harvest is so important. Most farmers I know don't just walk out into their fields and start throwing all kinds of seed around the field. They take time to plan out their field, to know what produce they are going, where they are going to plant them, what season they want the harvest to occur, and things like that. In other words, they plan their harvest!

Spiritually speaking, many of us never reap an amazing harvest, because we fail to plan for an amazing harvest.

What do I mean to metaphorically plan your future harvest? I think it is akin to what David wrote in Psalm 37:4: The Psalmist David says in Psalm 37:4: "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."


I challenge you to take some time in the upcoming days and think about what you really want to harvest during the next year, two years, or decade.  to sit down and think about what you really want. Be completely honest. Write down whatever is on your heart in relation to all areas of your life: your finances, your family, your health, your spiritual life, your career, and so on.

If there's something on the list that shouldn't be there, God will help you deal with it. David said that the Lord will give you the desires of your heart, and there are two ways you can apply this. He gives you what your heart desires when you let him put the right kind of desire in your heart. If you let him, he will change what your heart desires. Have you ever wanted something that you just knew wasn't right for you ... but you wanted it anyway? Without a doubt we all have. Here's what I've learned. The more you seek the Lord, the more time you spend in his presence, the more your desires will change. He will make your heart desire the right thing, and then he will give you what your heart desires.

The Principle of Consistency

To experience the deeper life, we have to learn that the successful life is not achieved by jumping into the deepest part of it all at once, by leaping from ground-level to the mountaintop in one giant move, but moving there step-by-step. It is what I am calling the Principle of Consistency.

Steve May writes: "We've all heard examples of people performing feats of extra-human strength in a moment of crisis, such as the man who lifted the 500 pound rock off his friend during a mountain-climbing accident or the woman who lifted the car that had fallen on her son while he was changing a flat. It was a momentary burst of adrenalin that got them through the situation, and it's an interesting phenomenon that has been documented several times.  However, none of the people who have experienced this phenomenon are ready to join the Olympic weight-lifting team. If you want to be a world-class weight lifter, you don't get there with one super-human burst of adrenalin, you get there by going through the daily discipline of working out and building strength."

If you lifted a 500-pound barbell from your waist to your shoulders one time (like any of us could actually do that), we all agree that would do nothing to change your physique. But if you lifted 50-pounds twenty times a day, four days a week, after a few weeks you would notice a change in your biceps. It is the principle of consistency.

The principle of consistency states that the actions you take day after day determine the kind of life you create for yourself in the future. Paul refers to this principle in Galatians 6:7, where he wrote, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." You've probably heard this referred to the as the Law of the Harvest. You reap what you sow. Every day you sow seeds of an abundant life, or you sow seeds of mundaneness and mediocrity. The seeds you sow on a daily basis will determine the harvest you reap.

This is what Paul said in verses 8, 9: "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

Paul's talking about the principle of consistency. It is repetition and consistency that determines your harvest.

This week, we are going to look how to develop this principle into our lives, because, again, this principle will either lead you to a life of abundance, or a life of scarcity.

The Principle of God's Purpose

Paul wrote in Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Some versions say, "God causes all things to work together for good." When we accept Christ as our Savior, He then becomes the architect of our future. He designs, directs, and coordinates every minute detail of our life so that we can become the person he intends us to be.

The story of Joseph in the book of Genesis reminds us of this. If you remember, His brothers sold him into slavery and told their father he had died. Joseph then became a slave to a man named Potipher. He was then put in prison because Potipher's wife accused him of sexual assault. He was innocent, of course. But God working through these seemingly horrible and certainly stress-inducing events to accomplish a greater purpose for Joseph's life. Joseph eventually became the second-in-command in Egypt. He was able to save the country from economic ruin brought on by the effects of a disastrous drought. But he was also able to save his entire family as well. When his brothers came to him, they pleaded with him, "Please don't seek revenge against us," Joseph said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people." (Genesis 50:20 NLT)

God has a purpose for your life and knows exactly how to orchestrate the events of your life to accomplish His purpose. And His purpose is far greater than anything you could purpose for yourself! And let me just reassure you of one thing...you don't have to understand all the details of God's purpose for your life to be a part of it. You just have to trust him.

So when it appears that random things are happening in my life, I often remind myself that there's no such thing as random events for my life. God has a plan. He has a purpose. He's working all things together for good.And when I trust in his purpose, stress loses its power.

The Principle of God's Presence

If you were to ask the average Christian in America, "Is God always with us?" you would get an affirmative answer. It's a slam dunk. No way we get that one wrong. On a theological level, we Christians believe in the omnipresence of God. He is everywhere at the same time. We can't hardly wrap our heads around that, but we believe it!

On a practical level, however, so often we live our lives as if we don't believe. Craig Groeschel, of LifeChurch.tv uses the term Christian Atheist to describe someone who believes in God, but lives as though God doesn't exist. Many people live their lives that way. They live their lives as if they are all alone. Sure God is there, but He is distant and removed from their daily lives. He's not paying attention to their situation. Occasionally, He makes His rounds and checks in on them, but most of the time they are left to experience life by themselves.

If you live your life that way, no wonder you're stressed!

The Bible teaches us that God is with us, and His presence brings us the antithesis of stress...REST! God told Moses in Exodus 33:14:  "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." When we find ourselves stressed, that stress serves as a warning sign that we have drifted from the presence of God. He is not over there; He is right here. And the promise is that His presence will give us rest!

Want a New Testament Scripture to remind us of His presence. Let's look at the first of our three passages from Romans 8. In Romans 8:35, we are asked, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or diSTRESS (emphasis mine), or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”. The next verse resounds with a loud "NO!"

Why? Verses 38-39, remind of God's presence:  “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Follow the logic: If nothing can separate us, then He is with us. If He is with us, what does He give us? Rest!

He is with us all time. He is here to stay. Nothing can change that. It's the principle of God's presence.

The Principle of Outlook

What does it mean to live life to the fullest? I use this phrase a lot, because Jesus used it, yet I meet so few people who actually experience it. Jesus said, "I came to give life—life in all its fullness." (John 10:10 NCV) Other translations say that he came that we might live "life more abundantly."

Why do so many of us miss this? That's what our new sermon series is all about. For the next four sermons we are going to be looking at how to experience a deeper, fuller life.

This week we are going to look at the most important thing to experience life in it's fullest. In order to experience the abundant life, we must learn how to conquer stress. We often us the term stress management. But I can tell you that I am not interested in managing stress. I am interested in eradicating it! I don't want to learn how to live with stress. I want to learn how to live without it!

Research on stress indicates that its influence on our dopamine levels and brain activities cause a lot of things to happen. When we are stressed, food doesn't taste as good, the sun doesn't shine as bright, music doesn't sound as good, jokes are as funny, the air doesn't smell as fresh, and the pastor's sermon isn't nearly as good!

Stress is the deeper life's biggest enemy. The irony about stress is that, most of the time, its power is only imagined. The reality is, most of what we stress out about...really doesn't matter! Now obviously, if you are in a life-threatening situation, stress is warranted. I mean, if you are traveling on I-24 going down Monteagle Mountain and your brakes fail, you ought to stress a little.

The problem is though, many of us have conditioned ourselves to stress out in situations that are not dangerous, in fact, they are not really that important. Things as mundane as the traffic, food orders that are wrong, being interrupted at work, or the internet goes down.

Now really? In the grand scheme of things, do these things really warrant that much stress? Are they really worth a fight-or-flight mode? A tragically, some people live their entire lives in fight-or-flight. Unfortunately, you can't be in fight-or-flight mode and experience the abundant life at the same time.

That's what this sermon is all about, learning how to eradicate stress from our lives.

As I said earlier, most of our stress is caused by misperceptions. So if we want to eradicate it's power on our lives, we need to develop right thinking. So this week, we are going to look three principles from the Romans 8 that will enable us to overcome stress. But let me begin today by just reminding you of the greatst principle of all. 1 John 4:4 says, "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world."  This verse reminds us that even when the world is falling apart all around you, you don't have to worry, because you have the Spirit of God living in you. And God's power is greater than any chaos that exists in the world.

From "I'm So Sorry" To "God's So Great"

The second miracle I want to share with you comes from Don Womack. A few months ago, Don went to his doctor to have a small skin cancer removed from his face. Don has had several of those removed through the years, so he didn't think much about it. But a few days later, the doctor called Don, and Don's wife, Joyce, answered the phone. The doctor began with "I'm so sorry". That's not a good way to begin a conversation with your doctor!

He then proceeded to tell Joyce that the cancer was wrapped around a nerve in Don's face that led directly to his brain. Over and over he said, "I'm so sorry."

He scheduled Don to come back in for another MRI to see exactly how bad the situation was. But over the weekend, we began to pray for Don. Don's attitude was amazing. He said, "I've lived a long good life, and if it's my time to go, I'm ready. And if God wants to heal me, I'm ready."

We continued to pray throughout the weekend. When Don went back to the doctor for the follow up, he was amazed. He told Don, in essence, that it was there last week, wrapped around that nerve...but it's gone!" He basically told Don that he had thought Don wouldn't have long to live.

He suggested that Don follow up with some radiation on the spot just to be safe. He told Don that it wouldn't hurt, but it would make him tired. Don is now on about day 15 of the 20-something day treatment. Don told us Sunday, "I don't feel any different than I ever do!" (Of course, he added, and you just have to know Don's sense of humor, "I told the doctor that I was always tired anyway.")

We are so grateful for Don's amazing miracle of healing. God is great and greatly to be praised!

A Father's Diligence; A Son's Redemption

As most of you know, in July, 2011, I challenged our church people to put to paper seven miracles they would like God to do for them. I then asked them to pray throughout the upcoming year concerning those miracles. On Sunday, August 5, 2012, we spent our Sunday Morning listening to testimony after testimony of miracles that God had performed. In fact, the testimonies lasted for an hour and a half!  Over the next few days I want to share some of those miracles with you. It is not that the ones I share are more important that others, but I just felt impressed to share these.

For almost twenty years, almost every time I asked for prayer requests, whether in our corporate worship services or in small group meetings, Charles Wooten would say, "Remember my children." He was referring to some of his children who had strayed from their relationship with the Lord. Occasionally, he would say, "Remember my children to be saved." I have heard that request almost twice a week for nineteen years, but I know he has made that request and prayed for the salvation of his children for many more years than that. You see, Charles is in his nineties.

On Wednesday, August 1, 2012, Charles came to our weekly Wednesday morning Bible Study, and he smiled and said, "I have something I need to tell you. Frank (that's one of his sons) got saved yesterday!" Frank had called his dad and told him that the day before, a young lady was talking to Frank and asked him to pray for her. Frank told his dad, "I knew I wasn't saved and I couldn't pray for her until I prayed for myself." So before he prayed for the young lady, Frank asked Jesus into his heart! The answer to a decades-long prayer request!

But that is not the end of the story. Charles told me that story on Wednesday. The next day, Thursday, Charles received a phone call and Frank had a massive heart attack and was in the hospital unconscious. On Friday, Frank passed from this world, but as a result of that prayer on Tuesday, he entered into an eternal home prepared by the Master!

Now Frank, Charles, nor any of us had any idea what would happen on Thursday. But God did! And I am convinced, that because of His great love, He sent a little girl to ask Frank to pray for her. God is always reaching out to us, always trying to make every effort to bring salvation into our life.

So Charles has experienced one of those amazing Christian contradictions. While he is sad over the loss of Frank, he also rejoices because he knows Frank is now in the presence of Jesus...all because a little girl wanted prayer (and a diligent Father kept praying for his children)!

Never quit praying. Never quit trusting. Keep believing. While you may not see God's answer this moment, who know's what might happen?

A Bad Day

In Acts 16, we are told the story about Paul and Silas in a prison cell in Philippi. Let me set up the story for you. Paul cast a demon out of a young lady who was a fortune-teller. Her handler doesn’t like it because when she lost the ability to tell the future, she also lost the ability to make money for him. So he has Paul and Silas arrested.

Acts 16:22-24 (NLT) says, “A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. So the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks.” 

For most of us, it is difficult to identify with this situation. We have all had bad days before, but nothing like what Paul and Silas are experiencing. They were probably emotionally, spiritually, and physically exhausted.

Their backs were bleeding from the beating they received. They are bruised from head to toe So physically, they are spent. They had a mob rise up against them. I'm sure that emotionally drained them. And to top it off, they are now in the dungeon of a prison with their feet in stocks.

It doesn’t get much worse than that. That’s what makes the next verse so amazing. Acts 16:25 says,  “Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.” 


How could they do it? How can they sing in such a difficult situation? They were worshipers! You can be a worshiper or you can be a complainer. Paul and Silas chose to be a worshiper. They made a pre-decision that regardless of the situation, they would worship God!

We can make that same decision as well! Paul and Silas knew a secret that we often forget...worship is based on the worthiness of God not the comfortableness of our situations.

Let's Zoom Out!

Vicki Medvec, a professor at Northwestern University, did a fascinating research study concerning bronze and silver medalists at the Olympics. She was trying to determine who was the happiest of the two groups and why. She discovered that Bronze medalists were happier than Silver medalists because the silver medalists tended to focus on how close they came to winning gold and didn't...so they weren't satisfied or happy with the silver. Bronze medalists focused on how close they came to not winning a medal at all so they were just happy to have one a metal.

What she really discovered is what students of human nature have known for years: your focus determines your reality. As illogical as it may seem, happiness is not measured by an objective set of circumstances in our lives but by our subjective focus.

A great truth that will radically transform our lives is this: Your internal attitudes are more important than your external circumstances. Think about the original humans in the Garden of Eden. They had paradise given to them. They had access to everything the world could offer, but one thing. Their attention became laser-focused on that one thing and they were discontent about everything else. Think about Daniel and the three Hebrew young men in Babylon. They were in captivity. Babylon is the Biblical representative of everything wrong in the world. Yet they maintained their integrity. What was the difference? Their focus!

All of us know people who can find something good to focus on even when they are experiencing bad circumstances. We also all probably know someone who can find something bad to focus on in spite of all the good their lives..

You see, we tend to see what we’re looking for. Spiritually speaking, there are two basic types of people in the church world: complainers and worshippers. Complainers can always find something to complain about. Worshippers can always find something for which they can give God glory.

A worshipper makes a decision to always praise and worship regardless of their circumstances. This week we are going to be looking at a familiar story in the Bible that illustrates this principle in the lives of two Bible heroes.

Civilized

There is a great scene in Rocky III, where Rocky is confused about Mick's refusal to sign a fight between the World Champion, Rocky Balboa, and a mouthy challenger, Clubber Lang (the role that brought Mr. T to our attention). Clubber is a tough street fighter, who is just destroying everyone he fights. Rocky has been fighting cream-puffs and even "fights" wrestling star Hulk Hogan (again a role that made him famous). Rocky is angry at Mick for refusing to fight Lang and keeps questioning why he refuses the bout. Mick gives a great line, “...the worst thing happened that could happen to any fighter. You got civilized!”


That is not only true about fighters, that is true about worship! In the gospels, the only civilized people that are mentioned are the Pharisees, and Jesus was never very impressed with them. In fact, He is consistently lambasting the Pharisees. Yet He praises a prostitute who doesn’t know any better than to crash a dinner party, wash His feet with her tears and her hair, and break open an Alabaster jar of perfume an anoint His feetas an act of worship.

You kind of get the idea that God cares about outward appearance. As Mark Batterson says, God is looking for is people who are desperate enough to climb sycamore trees, desperate enough to cut holes in ceilings, desperate enough to push through crowds and yell at the top of their voices, and desperate enough to jump out of boats to get to him!

David says, “I will become even more undignified than this....” (2 Samuel 6:22)

One of the words for worship in Hebrew is hallal. It has a lot of meanings, but one means clamorously foolish. What that means is, if you aren’t willing to look foolish you can’t worship!

I mean worship, in a strictly human sense, is foolish isn’t it? We are singing to someone we can’t see! We are raising your hands to someone we can’t touch.

Have you ever seen someone singing, or even better, dancing in their car? You see their mouth moving, their hands tapping the steering column, or their body swaying. They look sort of foolish don’t they? Why? Because you can’t hear the music! There is an old proverb: “Those who hear not the music think the dancer is mad.” 

That’s what is happening in 2 Samuel 6.  David hears the music. Michal doesn’t. If we set our spiritual ears on heaven’s frequency and hear the music, it would cause us to sing and dance. We might even dance like David danced in 2 Samuel 6.

Foolish

I think 2 Samuel 6 provides for us one of the keys as to why God used David in miraculous ways. To set the backdrop, David has just attended his own coronation as the King of Israel. He led Israel into an arousing victory over the Philistines. And now he is leading them into one of the greatest spiritual revivals of their history...bringing the Ark of Covenant back to Jerusalem.

This is on the greatest days of his life! However, 2 Samuel 6:16 (NLT) says, “But as the Ark of the Lord entered the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window. When she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was filled with contempt for him.” 

Let me give you an insight that I have gained in over thirty years of ministry and watching people grow excited about their relationship with the Lord. When you get excited about God don’t expect everyone else to be as enthusiastic about your excitement as you are! When you experience a personal revival, some people will be encouraged by your experience. But others will be convicted. And their conviction will often display itself with criticism. They will criticize you, your experience, and your enthusiasm.

Michal is a perfect example. 2 Samuel 6:20 says, “When David returned home to bless his own family, Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him. She said in disgust, “How distinguished the king of Israel looked today, shamelessly exposing himself to the servant girls like any vulgar person might do!”

Here's what is amazing to me about David. Even though he was the King, he was not afraid to look foolish. He disrobed (shed his royal robes) and danced before the Lord.

The royal robes represented David’s identity and security. But David recognized that identity and security can be found whether you wear kingly robes or servant clothes. And because of that, he wasn’t afraid of looking foolish! Verses 21-22 continue, “David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

Don't miss the phrase, “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” The New Living Translation says, “Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!” David recognized one of the most important principles about worship...Worship is not about our personal comfort; it is about God's worthiness.

I Feel Foolish

Most of us have a fear of looking foolish. In poll after poll, the number one fear of Americans is the fear of public speaking. It ranks higher than the fear of death and the fear of spiders. You know what that means? We would rather die of a spider bite than have to speak publicly!!! Why? I think it is the fear of looking foolish, of being embarrassed. It has been called the curse of self-consciousness.

We are going to be exploring that this week. It is the fear of looking foolish that kept us from raising our hand in elementary school to answer a question by the teacher. What if we are wrong? It is the fear of looking foolish that kept us from asking a girl out on a date as a teenager. What if she said "no", or worse yet laughed at or made of us? It is the fear of looking foolish that keeps us from praying for amazing miracles. What if it doesn't happen? We will look foolish.

And I think it is the fear of looking foolish that keeps us from worshiping God the way we could or even should. I love the way that Mark Batterson talks about it in his book, The Circle Maker. The whole acceptance of faith involves the willingness to look foolish.  Noah looked foolish building an ark in the dessert. Sarah looked foolish buying maternity clothes at ninety. The Israelites looked foolish marching around Jericho blowing trumpets. David looked foolish attacking Goliath with a slingshot. The Wise Men looked foolish following yonder star. Peter looked foolish stepping out of the boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of the night. And Jesus looked foolish hanging half-naked on the cross.

But that’s faith. Faith is the willingness to look foolish.

And the results speak for themselves don’t they? Noah was saved from the flood. Sarah gave birth to Isaac. The walls of Jericho came tumbling down. David defeated Goliath. The Wise Men found the Messiah. Peter walked on water. And Jesus rose from the dead.

Most of us will never kill a giant or walk on water because we are not willing to look foolish. We’re not willing to attach with a slingshot or get out of the boat in the middle of the lake. This week, we are going to be looking at a time in King David's life when he looked foolish in the eyes of his wife...and even in his own eyes. But he realized that the worship that God deserved at the time was not for His personal comfort but for God's glory. I hope you will join me each day as we explore 2 Samuel 6.

Praise or Pride?

If you don't remember anything else from these posts this week, I hope you will remember this take-away: Every blessing becomes the source of one of two things: a source of praise or a source of pride.


There are no alternatives. Either praise or price. Like the Israelites with their golden earrings, if we aren’t careful, the blessings of God can become a source of personal pride. And if that happens, it would better that we never received them!

The Israelites had been in slavery for over 400 years. The very definition of slavery means they had nothing. They didn't even have their own freedom. Then, in one day, as God is setting them free from the bondage, He causes the Egyptians to show favor to the Israelites. They give them gold earrings, flocks and herds...more than you can count! For this current generation of Israelites, they had never owned gold, flocks, or herds. Everything they saw belonged to the Egyptians.

They must have overwhelmed but the blessing! But what happened? Instead of these blessings being a source of praise, they turned them into a source of pride...and idolatry.

We have the same choice every time we experience a blessing. We can either take credit or give credit. Worship is giving credit where credit is due.

We sing a song that, to be honest, sometimes confused me...until now. The words say, “Every blessing you pour out I’ll turn back to praise.” I always thought, "Of course, I will turn it back to praise. What else could it become?" Now, I realize that if I fail to turn the blessings of God into praise they will become a source of pride.

So, "Blessed be the name of the Lord! Blessed be His glorious name!"

En Theos

Aaron made a golden calf and the people became very excited. They build an altar in front of it. And began to celebrate. The celebration was so loud, that when Moses and Joshua came down the mountain, Joshua though they were being attacked by an enemy. But Moses said, “No, it’s neither a cry of victory nor a cry of defeat. It is the sound of a celebration.” (Exodus 32:18)

The problem was, they were getting excited about the wrong thing. Enthusiasm is not a bad thing, as long as we are enthusiastic about the right thing. The word enthusiasm comes from two Greek words: en Theos, which literally means in God. Don't miss the irony of the word-play. The more we get into God the more enthusiastic we become about God.

Too often we, as Christians, focus on what is wrong with mankind in general, and with ourselves in particular. But I'm not sure the problem is that we don't feel bad enough about what's wrong with us. I think a bigger issue is that we tend to not feel good enough about what is right about God. You see, you can't feel good about what is right with God unless you are into God! And when we are in God we will be enthusiastic about God. It is a perpetually growing chain...the more we are into God the more we will be enthusiastic about God, which will drive us to be more into God.

One of Satan's greatest tools is to keep us focused on what is wrong with us, and in doing so, we fail to see what is right about God! Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right about God. Don't let what is wrong with your church keep you from worshiping what is right about God. Don't let what is wrong with our nation keep you from worshiping what is right about God.

Filling The Vacuum

Exodus 32 is written as an epilogue to Moses having spent forty days on Mount Sinai communing with God and receiving the Commandments from the Lord. Exodus 32:1 says, “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

Aristotle reportedly said, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” While that may or may not be true in physics (sorry, I really am not up on a natural physics), It is definitely true spiritually. The Israelites had been led by Moses in their worship of God. He has been gone for forty days and they couldn't go that long without worshiping something! Since they were not worshiping God, they filled the vacuum with a god they created.

They asked Aaron to build them a god or idol, so he had them bring their golden earrings. These earrings were a gift from God. Let's go back to go back to Exodus 12:36,  “The Lord caused the Egyptians to look favorably on the Israelites, and they gave the Israelites whatever they asked for. So they stripped the Egyptians of their wealth!”

Don't miss this...the Israelites turned a gift from God into an idol. If we aren’t careful, we can easily do the same thing.. In fact, the greatest blessings pose the greatest danger for idolatry.

The people said in Exodus 32:4: “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of Egypt.”

Think about all the miracles the Israelites had seen God perform in the days preceding this catastrophe. God had sent the ten plagues to gain their release from Pharaoh. They had watched the parting of the Red Sea. They were eating manna and quail miraculously provided for them. Water had come out of a rock. And now they are giving a golden calf the credit for delivering them from Egypt? Are you kidding me?

In it's essence, worship is giving credit where credit is due. Sin is giving credit to anyone besides God for any blessing you have enjoyed...including giving credit to your own abilities, talent, or intellect.

God has rescued the Israelites. He has shown them miracles and given them gifts. And what do they do? They take the gift God had given them and use it make an idol.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ.”

Allow me to make a closing observation today. There is a part of us that reads this story in Exodus 32 and we think, "Those silly ancient people! How could they worship a golden calf? They were so primitive." But don't we worship little green pieces of paper with numbers on them? Is that really any different? If we’re worshipping anything other than God, we are bowing down to a golden calf.

Wired For Worship

Computers are designed to compute. Bicycles are designed to bike. Mowers are designed to mow. Strollers are designed to stroll. So what are humans designed to do...hum? Be thankful...I could have asked, "What are people designed to do?"

Actually the Bible is very clear that we are designed to worship. I love this quote from Louie Giglio's book, The Air I Breath: “You my friend are a worshiper! Everyday, all day long, in every place you worship. It’s what you do. It’s who you are. You cannot help but worship something. It’s what you were made to do. Should you for some reason choose not to give God what He desires, you’ll worship anyway - simply exchanging the Creator for something He has created. Worship happens everywhere all day long. We all worship something all the time.”

As I discussed in our last sermon series, The Physics of Faith, everyone has faith in something. You either have faith in an Intelligent Designer or your have faith in random chance. It is not a question of whether you have faith. The question is, "What do you have faith in?"

The same is true about worship. The question is not "Are you a worshiper?" The question is, "What do you worship?" From a Biblical perspective, we may not worship the right thing, we may not worship the right way, but make no mistake about it, we all worship something!

This week, as we begin our study entitled Wired to Worship, we are going to dig into the experiences of the people of Israel while on the Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. As we look specifically at Exodus 32, we will be exploring the vacuum that occurs when we fail to worship God, the enthusiasm that should be involved in our worship, and the only two results that can occur when we receive a blessing from God. I hope you will join me everyday for this fascinating story.

Negentropy

There is a counterpart of entropy, the law that all things eventually decay. It’s called negentropy. Negentropy is the increase of information that results in the decrease of disorder. If sin leads to decay and perishing, vision provides the solution (Proverbs 29:18)

In the physical world, he only way to prevent entropy is to counter it with outside energy source that will counteracts it. For instance, when you plug a refrigerator into an electrical outlet,  it produces cold air that keeps food from rotting. But if you unplug that refrigerator, decay will take over again.

Spiritually, that is what happens to us when we disconnect from God. Para (perish) takes over. The only way to stop spiritual entropy is to connect to God. Sin introduced entropy, the process of decay, disorder, and disharmony when Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. The account of the fall of man in Genesis 3 is a story of entropy. In fact, Paul tells us in Romans 8:21 that we are :in bondage to decay.” It is is inescapable.

However, the story of redemption through Jesus Christ is one of freedom for those who are captive to the chains of sin and the destruction of spiritual entropy. Jesus Himself said in John 10:10: “The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy. I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” Don't miss it...the thief bring entropy; Jesus is the negentropy!

I started this week by encouraging you that God is in the business of reversing the irreversible! What areas of your life are in decay? Where are you experiencing the entropy of sin? That is the very place where God wants to reverse the power of sin in your life and start you on the road to healing.

(A special thanks to Mark Batterson, of National Community Church, for the thoughts in this series).

Entropy

As a reminder, one of the meanings of the word  entropy is a gradual decline into disorder. I believe that is an excellent description of what sin does in our lives. Sin moves us toward disorder. It causes us to become more and more fragmented.

How do we overcome this disorder of entropy in our lives? Stay with me for a moment and let's take a back-door approach to the problem. Proverbs 29:18 states, “Without a vision the people perish.” The Hebrew word for perish is para which refers to the process of decay. Sound familiar?  The word is specifically used to describe perishable food that has become rotten.

Allow me to theorize for a few moments. If you don't have a God-given vision for your life, what happens? You para, you begin the process of decay. The process of entropy begins in your life. The cure? A God-given vision. When we see what God has in store for our lives, we would be so consumed with the glorious purpose He has designed for us, we would not waste our time, energy, or thoughts on sinful, decaying behavior.

Psychology has a term called double-bind. A double-bind is when we are put in a situation where we can't accomplish win For instance, if I tell you to act spontaneously, you cannot do it because you are thinking to yourself to be spontaneous....which of course isn't spontaneous.

What in the world does that have to do with entropy, decay, and vision? We often try to tell ourselves to stop sinning by not sinning. I believe that is an impossible battle to win. The more we try to stop sinning by not sinning, the more we have to try harder to stop sinning by not sinning. And the result is we focus on sin and...sin.

The wise man tells us the secret to stopping the decaying process in our lives is to have a vision. When we have a vision of who God wants us to become, what He wants us to do, and what He wants to do in our our lives, we discover the cure for perishing, decaying, and entropy. I am persuaded that a God-given vision is the only thing that will keep us from the process of decay! Vision is God's preservative.

The Law of Disorder

In the 1978 version of Superman, Superman is faced with a decision with which all of us can empathize. Does he save his girlfriend or save the world? Lois Lane was driving through the desert when her car is swallowed by an earthquake. A nuclear warhead is cruising toward Washington D.C. Superman has to decide who to save. So he diverts the warhead and Lois dies in crevice. Superman does something amazing. He starts flying counter-clockwise around the earth and reverses the rotation of the earth. This in turn, causes time to go backwards and he then pulls Lois out of the crevice before she dies. Of course, the thing I could never figure out is...if time really went backwards and he can save Lois, wouldn't the missile still be cruising toward the capital again.

I know it's bad science, but it makes a great movie. Wouldn’t it be great if you said something to someone you wish you hadn't said, you could reverse time and pull it back in. Unfortunately, in life, some things are irreversible.

Some things in life are irreversible. But God specializes in reversing the irreversible. Think about all the things Jesus reversed...the weather, blindness, paralysis, even death. Acts 2:24 says it. “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”  Don't miss the phrase impossible for death to keep its hold on him. In the 21st century, we have a saying that says something like this "The only thing certain is death and taxes." But this verse tells us that while humans tell us that it is impossible to escape death, it was impossible for death to hold Jesus.

Thermodynamics is the study of energy. The first and second laws of thermodynamics describe the way the energy works. For this sermon, we are going to focus on the second law of thermodynamics. It introduces a term called entropy, which basically says that, left on its own, everything moves towards disorder. It's the reason why iron rusts, technology glitches, apples rot, and your teenager's room gets messy.

So this week, we are going to explore the relationship of entropy with sin, and the way we combat entropy...and sin.

Obvious!

In light of our study this week, let me make a few observations based on 2 Kings 6:1-6.

First, of all God cares about little things as well as big things. I mean, let's be honest, the loss of an axehead doesn't  equate a life-disaster. Sure, for this apprentice, the axe-head was important. It was borrowed, and he would have to get a new one for the owner. But it wasn't life-threatening. But this story reminds us that little things matter to God.

Secondly, you can't teach miracles...you just have to believe them. I mean, think about the irony. They are building seminary to learn how to be better prophets. And God teaches them the most important lessons about being a man of God...trust Him; believe Him; and put Him first.

Finally, if iron can swim, do you think your problem is impossible? I love Mark Batterson's observation, "God doesn't answer all the prayers we don't pray." James said in James 4:2, “You have not because you ask not.” 


Most of us don't see iron swim because we have never ask for iron to swim. Sometimes our prayers are just simply too small. Now I can't promise God will not answer every prayer you pray in the way you want it answered (you know, He is God...I am not; He knows better than I do what I need). But I can assure you that you will very seldom see amazing things happen if you seldom for amazing things!

I love the story about George Danzig, In the 1930’s, George was  a graduate student at UC Berkeley He was late to class one day. The mathematics professor had written two problems on the blackboard. Danzig thought they were the homework assignment. It was the most difficult homework assignment he’d ever encountered. Night after night he tried solving the two problems. It took him nearly a week to finally figure them out. He finally turned in his assignment and thought he’d get a bad grade because it took so long.

A few weeks later, George heard a pounding on his door early in the morning. He was surprised to see his mathematics professor standing there. His professor said, “George, you solved the problems.” George said, “Of course I did, they were our homework assignment.” The professor said, “That wasn’t your homework assignment. Those were two of the most famous insolvable problems in mathematics. The world’s leading mathematicians have been trying for years to solve the two problems you solved in a few days.”

George Danzig, who later became a professor at Stanford University, said, “If someone had told me that they were two famous unsolved problems, I probably wouldn’t have even tried to solve them.” In other words, if you don’t think it can be done you won’t even try. You’ve got to believe it to achieve it.

George Danzig solved two unsolvable problems because he didn’t know it couldn’t be done. Elisha prayed for the axhead to float because he didn’t know it couldn’t’ be done. Peter walked on water because he didn’t know it couldn’t be done. The little boy with 2 loaves of bread and five fish gave them to Jesus because he didn’t know that they couldn’t feed five thousand people!

Albert Einstein is quoted from the book Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences (1952) by Eric Temple Bell, as saying, “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age of eighteen.” I don't want to put words in Einstein's mouth, but I think he is challenging us to not allow our experiences to override what we think is and is not possible. I think faith is suspending common sense long enough to believe that God can do the impossible.

Ridiculous!

II Kings 6 records one of the most improbable miracles in Scripture: “One day the group of prophets came to Elisha and told him, “As you can see, this place where we meet with you is too small. Let’s go down to the Jordan river, where there are plenty of logs. There we can build a new place for us to meet.” When the arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees. But as one of them was chopping, his ax head fell into the river. He said, “Alas, master! For it was borrowed.”  (verses 1-5)

Notice the verb tense. This apprentice uses the past-tense. As far as he’s concerned, this axhead is as good as gone. This apprentice regarded his loss as final. He had no expectation whatsoever that it would retrieved. I think he wanted a little mercy or a little sympathy, but he wasn’t expecting a miracle! He didn’t have a category for what was about to happen.

I am so unlike Elisha. Whenever someone comes to me with a problem, my first response is to organize some human mechanism to meet his need. Perhaps I would have taken an offering for him next Sunday to buy him a new axe head. Maybe start a support group for people who have lost axe heads. Or build a dam to stop the water so we can recover the axe head. Do you know what I mean? Then, if none of that worked, I would have prayed.

But you can tell the wheels of faith are for Elisha. He asked, “Where did it fall?” When the apprentice showed him the spot where the axe-head fell, Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water. Then the axe head began floated. I love the old King James Version of this  in 2 King 6:6: “And the iron did swim.” 


I don't know that I can promise you can always make iron swim. My experience has not been that God always does what I ask Him to do in the manner I asked Him to do it. For me, this story isn't a story to challenge by faith so that I can believe iron can swim. I believe that if God chooses to work in that manner, it can! The challenge for me personally is to be more like Elisha and less like....me! To take every situation to God first and quit using my human mechanisms first. Who knows? If I do that, I may actually see iron swim!

Impossible?

In Luke 1:37, God redefined what is and what is not impossible, “Nothing is impossible.” Jesus confirmed that shifting of the paradigm of possibilities when He said in Matthew 19:26 also said, “All things are possible.” And it wasn't just a motivational speech for Jesus. He went around doing the impossible. He specialized in the impossible.

Jesus changed the weather in a moment with a simple command. He rewired a blind man's optic nerve and enabled him to see. He walked on water and through walls. He made the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute talk, and the lame walk. He took five loaves and two fish and multiplied it to feed 5,000 men, besides the women and children (not to mention there were twelve basketfuls left over after everyone ate). He brought dead people back to life. He even came back to life.

That is pretty much an amazing list of impossibilities! Now, let me counter your reaction before you even give it, “Yeah, but that’s Jesus. What does that have to do with me?” Listen to what the One who said "All things are possible..."said about you and me: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these.” (John 14:12)

Mark 9:23 adds this snippet to the impossibilities realm, “Everything is possible to him who believes.” The tendency is to fall prey to the idea that if what I am praying for doesn't happen soon, I must not have enough faith. Let me counter that argument by adding a statement that you're going to need to stay with me in order to understand. Impossibilities are relative! Now don't quit...read on!

For a two-month old baby walking is impossible. That child has not developed the coordination nor motor skills to walk. But in time, not only can the child walk, it is expected. In fact, what was once considered an impossibility will eventually be considered an aberation. Sometimes time is the only difference what is impossible and what is possible. 

For a toddler who can't do simple addition and subtraction, algebraic problems would be considered impossible. But in a few years, the child will not only come up with a simple solution to that impossible problem it is expected! Sometimes knowledge is the only difference between what is impossible and what is possible.

Jesus is telling us that faith is the only difference between what is impossible and what is possible. And just as time and knowledge provide the difference between the possible and the impossible, sometimes all we need is the development of our faith in order to see the impossible!

Every believer should live in the realm of possibilities. It is our inheritance. While we may few problems as having a degree of difficulty, in other words, we have small problems and big problems, from God’s perspective, there are no degrees of difficulty! In Jeremiah 32:27, God asks us: “Is anything too hard for me?” We tend to think of prayer requests as having degrees of difficulty. But I love this quote from Mark Batterson, "To the infinite, all finites are equal. There is no big or small, easy or difficult, possible or impossible!"

To God, every situation in your life is equal, and all things are possible!

Believing the Impossible

For years, classical physics taught that there was nothing faster than the speed of light. But A physicist at the European Organization of Nuclear Research in Switzerland introduced the concept of instantaneous non-locality. Instantaneous non-locality is a term which allows instantaneous effects to act over arbitrarily long distances. A cause happening at one point, can thus have an instantaneous effect at the other end of the universe and at all points in between, even faster than the speed of light.

The point of this week's study is not to prove or disprove instantaneous non-locality. Bell’s Theorem redefined for the world of physics what is and what is not possible.

Two weeks ago I talked about Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and we explored the concept that absolutely nothing is certain. There is always a range of uncertainty in the world. This week, we are going to explore the refining of possibility. Bell was not the first to redefine what is and what is not possible. Long before Bell theorized that something was faster than anyone thought possible, our Savior challenged us to live in the realm of possibilities. He challenged us that there is always a range of possibility. He did it with four words: "All things are possible". (Luke 1:37). 


This week, I am going to challenging the validity of your (and mine) faith in the words of Jesus. Do we really believe what He said? Is it possible that "real" life has so jaded our faith, that we don't really believe that everything is a possibility? No cute answers. No getting off the hook with reasonable answers. "Well, I believe everything is possible...it's just not probable." The heroes of our faith didn't live that way. They lived in the realm of possibility. It didn't matter how big the problem, how small the problem. They believed God could (and would) do anything and everything!

Do you?

Reflecting His Glory

1 John 1:5 says, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” 

Philipians 2:14 says, “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.”

The word shine means to reflect. In the world of science, they would refer to this as albedo. Albedo is a measurement of how much light a celestial body reflects. Neptune has an albedo of .84, 84% of the sun's light that hits Neptune is reflected. That is why we can see in in the night sky even though it millions of miles away. By contrast, our moon, has an albedo of .07, only 7% of the light that hits the moon is reflected. That is why we don't have daylight at night. The moon absorbs most of the light that hits it.

Spiritually speaking, our goal should be a spiritual albedo of 1, we are totally reflecting the glory of God to our world completely. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says it this way: “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord.” I usually use the New Living Translation when I study, an I love the way this verse is translated there: "… as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory more and more."

Don't miss what Paul is saying. Christlikeness isn’t something we can produce or manufacture. It is about reflecting the glory of God. Christlike qualities in our lives are a reflection of His character. My godly love is only a reflection of His love. Any righteousness in my life is a mere reflection of His righteousness. My joy is a reflection of His joy!

For that to happen, we must be able to see Jesus. But the struggle so many of us have is that we have become absorbed with the cares of our daily lives to such an extent that we have a difficult time reflecting His glory. We have been darkened by the pollution of our culture to the extend that our spiritual albedo is very non-reflective.

How do we cure this? Remember, Christlikeness isn't something we can produce or manufacture. I occurs when we reflect the glory of God. the passage from 2 Corinthians begins with a reference to Moses' face shining with the glory of the Lord when he came down from Mount Sinai after spending time with God and receiving the Ten Commandments. There it is! We radiate with God's glory when we spend time with God! It's so simple. The more we spend time with Him the more we reflect His glory to a darkened world. But more about that tomorrow.

Seeing The Light

Genesis 1:3 declares the majestic creation of light, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.” God spoke four words and billion of stars came into existence! My words seem so empty compared to that. And those four words continue to have an amazing impact on the universe!

We tend to think of creation as something that occurred in the past. But a series of discoveries that led to a phenomenon known as the Doppler Effect has produced evidence that it appears the universe is still expanding. In other words the studies of men like Christian Doppler, Richard Tolman, and Edwin Hubble indicate that "Let their be light" is an ever-present command that continues to shape the light-given bodies of our universe. God hasn’t stopped creating!

Physics is primarily a study of things you can't see. The laws of gravity and centrifugal force produce results that we can observe, but you can't see gravity or momentum. Physics is a science of the invisible: quarks, magnetic fields, and gravitational forces. And this week, we are going to explore the amazing creation of light and how it is relevant to our lives as Christians.

Arthur Zajonc wrote in his book Catching The Light: The Entwined History of Light and the Mind about about a fascinating experiment called Project Eureka. Zajonc and a friend carefully fabricated a box and positioned a powerful projector to shine light into the box. They designed the box so that it wouldn’t illuminate any objects in the box or the surfaces of the box. So within the box was pure light. However, when they looked inside the box, they didn't see pure light. They saw absolute darkness! You see, light is invisible! It is ironic that the thing that enables us to see can not be seen.

I mean think the pictures you have seen of space above the earth's atmosphere. Even though the sun shines all through "space", you cannot see any light. The sun’s light is everywhere, but it can only be seen when it is illuminating something.

What we see is reflected light. When white light hits a blue object, all the colors are absorbed by the object except blue. The blue is reflected back to your eyes. White objects reflect all of the light. Black objects absorb all of the light.

It is a difficult concept to imagine and explain, but light is always present yet it is always illusive! It is invisible, yet it illuminates everything. We can’t see it but you cannot see anything without it!

Does it remind you of anything? Let me give you a hint: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for(A) and certain of what we do not see." Tomorrow, we will be looking at the Light of God, and our responsibility to reflect His light to the world.

Seeing The Unseen

“A mind stretched by a new idea never returns to its original shape.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Our current sermon series is entitled The Physics of Faith. My hope is that our minds will be stretched to explore the amazing awesomeness of God!

Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command.” It takes faith to believe in the God of Intelligent Design who created the universe. You can’t prove or disprove scientifically the creation story of the Bible. However, it also takes faith to believe in the God of random chance, Big Bang, and evolution. In fact, I think it takes more faith.

Sir Fred Hoyle, an astronomer, made this statement to the British Academy of Science years ago, “Let’s be scientifically honest. The probability of life arising to greater and greater complexity by chance through evolution is the same probability as having a tornado tear through a junkyard and form a Boeing 747 jetliner.” Hoyle calculated the chances of life being the result of random chance as being 1 in 10 raised to the 40,000th.

Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.” 

I mean, take this example. Right now you feel as though you are not moving at all. However, as you are reading this, the planet is spinning at approximately 1,000 mph, making a complete revolution in 24 hours. Not only that, we are traveling through space, in our annual journey around the sun, at approximately 67,000 mph. You will travel 1.3 million miles today!

When was the last time you thanked God for keeping us in orbit? Most of us take constants for granted! Few of us get to the end of the day and say, “God, thanks for helping us make the full rotation today!”

Here is the problem with God for most of us...He is so good at what he does that we take Him for granted. He is so faithful, powerful, loving, and wise. And He is completely constant in these qualities. James 1:17 declares that God "...does not change like shifting shadows." He is the ultimate constant. But we tend to take constants for granted.

Here’s what we are going to explore this week: Our lives are utterly dependent upon things we can’t see and don’t understand. We are surrounded by miracles. We just take them for granted. We are going to focus on one of those miracles that I think is most amazing, yet primarily taken for granted.

The Blessings of Uncertainty

The Uncertainty Principle is a law of life. Uncertainty never goes away. You may get a brief rest from it, but eventually it returns. Life will always be filled with infinite uncertainties! There will always be unanswered questions and unexplained experiences.

Donald Miller writes this in Blue Like Jazz: “There are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. Not only must you learn to live with this, you must learn to enjoy this.”

We all eventually have to accept the fact that God is God and we’re not. Which means, there will be questions that will never be answered. There will experiences that will never be explained. The secret to success in life is to learn to embrace the uncertainty.

Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” Don't miss the phrase “even though he did not know where he was going”. That is scary isn't it. Sometimes I will have no idea where God is taking me. However it is also encouraging. If someone as loved by God as Abraham didn't have a clue, then maybe I’m okay. Because a lot of the time, I am clueless. I have my plans, my goals, and my dreams, but the truth is, most of the time, I have no idea where God is taking me!

A teacher of the law said to Jesus in Luke 9: “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus responded: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 

You see, when you follow Christ, you never know where you’re going to end up. Anything can happen. That is intimidating, but it is also exciting. It is an adventure. And adventures are...fun! The element of surprise breathes joy into life. Thank God for uncertainty and unpredictability!

Uncertainty and Complexity

In 1932, a German physicist named Werner Heisenberg introduced a discovery that pulled the rug out from under the scientific community and is considered one of the greatest shifts in scientific paradigms in the 20th century. Heisenberg basically discovered that we cannot know the precise position and momentum of a quantum particle at the same time. Without going into a lengthy explanation of the Law of Uncertainty, Heisenberg was basically saying: there will always be an element of uncertainty.

Now let's shift to mathematics. A French-American by the name of Benoit Mandelbrot introduced a new study of complex shapes. Known as fractal geometry, Mandelbrot stated that some shapes are infinitely complex. What he meant by infinite complexity it that any detail can be magnified to reveal even more detail to the nth degree. Fractals are really the theological equivalent of what is called the incomprehensibility of God. God is infinitely complex.

So here's the deal. Life is infinitely uncertain and God is infinitely complex. It is the only place to start a series on the Physics of Faith. It is a recognition of our finiteness. Life is full of infinite uncertainties and God is infinitely complex. We can hate that. Or we can learn to love it.

Most of us hate negative uncertainties, bad things that happen that we didn’t expect to happen. And we love positive uncertainties, good things that happen that we didn’t expect to happen. But you can’t have it both ways. I think high levels of uncertainty make the best lives!

Hebrews chapter eleven is filled with heroes of the faith. I think we would all have to admit that each of them had a high tolerance for uncertainty! Each of them dealt with things that they didn't have a clue where they would conclude. That is what faith is all about. It is not just embracing uncertainty. It is learning to love it.

To many of us want a God we can control like a puppeteer. We want a predictable God. But that would create an amazing boredom. As we shall see in a couple of days...predictability leads to boredom. We we know something is always going to happen, we are no longer amazed by it. God continually amazes us because He is infinitely more complex that we will ever imagine!

The Law of Uncertainty

Our new sermon series is entitled The Physics of Faith. It is based on a series of message shared by Mark Batterson from National Community Church in Washington, D.C. In this series, I am going to challenge you to explore some immutable laws of physics that will help us better understand the God whom we worship.

By having two eyes instead of one, we are given an amazing optical capability called depth perception. If you cover one eye, everything seems flat. The reason is simple: you lose the ability to judge distances.

Unfortunately, sometimes many Christians go through life with only one eye open when God has given us two. Of course, I am speaking figuratively. Just as God as given us two physical eyes, He has also given us two figurative eyes. They eye of intellect and the eye of faith. If you choose to close either of them, you are not getting a full picture of what God desires you to see.

When we compartmentalize our intellect from our faith, we often lose perception and perspective. Albert Einstein may have said it best. “Science without religion is lame and, conversely, religion without science is blind.” Some Christians focus entirely on the intellect, and they lose the ability to dream, to trust, to believe in things that seem impossible. Other Christians, focus entirely on faith, and they live their lives without a sense of realism.

But what I hope to do in this series is to help us understand that learning and worshipping are not mutually exclusive endeavors. In fact, they are proportional: the more you know the better you can worship.

John 4:22 contains a fascination exchange between Jesus an a woman we refer to as the Samaritan woman. Jesus said to her, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know.” Read the New Living Translation of that verse and let me underscore a couple of words. “You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship.” Do you see it? Jesus links knowledge and worship together. Intellect and spirituality are not mutually exclusive terms.

When an astronomer looks into the night sky, he has a greater appreciation for the constellations and stars and planets because they see more than I do. When a musician listens to music they have a greater appreciation because they hear more than I do.

Even in the Great Commandment to love God, one quarter of the mind deals with the intellect. Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength.” Loving God with your mind is one-fourth of the command.

This series is being based on the passage of Scripture found in Romans 1:20, which says, “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” Can you see the connection? We grow to understand God's invisible qualities like his eternal power and his divine nature, when we understand His creation. We are able to more fully worship God for who He is when we more fully understand what He has created.

As Batterson asks, "Can you imagine studying about an artist like Pablo Picasso without looking at his paintings? Can you imagine studying about a composer like Ludwig Von Beethoven without listening to his music? It seems absurd doesn’t it? It’s about as absurd as studying about the Creator without studying creation."

God's Provision

In Psalm 34:18, the Psalmist reminds us: “The LORD is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Moses poured out his heart to God in a strong lament? He had grown weary from the burden of leading God’s grumbling people. Moses voiced his complaint to God about God. And how did God respond? Did God give up on Moses? Did God walk away from Moses? Numbers 11:16-17 says: “The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.”

God gave Moses a plan to help him with his burden. Amazingly, God poured out His Spirit on some of the very same people who had been complaining about Moses. They very one causing Moses burden would be used to bring Moses relief!

God’s care for desperate people is consistent with his merciful and gracious character. "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and save those who are crushed in spirit." God had told Moses in Exodus 3:7: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying our because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.”



God is saying: “I see, I hear, I am concerned.” Sometimes we wonder if God really cares. Does God really hear our cry of despair? Moses thought the answer to those to questions were, NO! This was Moses complaint in Numbers 11:21-22: “But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”


There were millions of them in desert, and God said He provide a month’s supply of meat. And God response to Moses ought to be a powerful reminder to us. The Lord answered Moses in verse 23:, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”



When we are in trouble, it is easy to give in to despair. Our situation may seem hopeless and it may seem as though God has deserted us and is uncaring. But remember...God sees. God cares. God provides.

God asked Moses, and he asks us, "Is my arm to short to provide for you?’ There is only one right answer. "The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Our desert and barren situations are fertile ground to experience God’s miraculous provision.

The Land Between Part 2

Last week, I  introduce the idea of the Land Between. It is not an original idea, but I got it from the book entitled, The Land Between: Finding God In Difficult Transitions, by Jeff Manion.

For more than two hundred years the people of Israel had lived in Egypt along the fertile crescent area of the Nile River, which was a very fertile land. Egypt, at this time, was a unilateral world power. Eventually Israel grew and prospered so much that they became a threat to the Egyptians. Under a tyranical Pharaoh, they were subjected to a terrible form of slavery. Over the course of time, the Israelites cried out for deliverance and their cry was heard by the God they barely knew or remembered. God then made this promise in Exodus 3:8: “(I will) bring them up out of that land and into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

And God fulfilled his promise. Through a series of miraculous events, the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, water from a rock in the desert, and a host of other miracles, God led Israel OUT OF Egypt and forty years later INTO the Promised Land.

Between the out of and into is the place that Manion calls The Land Between. For Israel, the Land Between is a desert place. It is the Sinai Peninsula. It is a difficult place. It is where faith either grows or dies. It is in the Land Between that perhaps the most important, and certainly the biggest, part of the Exodus story is found.

Life is a passage between the past which has shaped us and the future we hope to construct and possess. Between the certainty of the past and the uncertainty of the future is the Land Between. It is a place of uncertainty, disruption and questioning. While there, we may experience heartache, pain, and struggles. But although it may be a spiritually dry place, it can also be fertile place where faith grows and flourishes.

Last week, we looked at the difference between the people's murmuring and Moses' lamenting. This week we are going to see three different things God did while they were in the Land Between: He provided; He disciplined; and He helped them grow!

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

If ever there were a champion lamenter, Jeremiah would have to be it. His life as a prophet was tough. His message wasn’t popular. Jeremiah went 23 years without one convert (Jeremiah 25:3). Think those numbers would look good on a report? There is a book in the Bible that is full of Jeremiah’s laments to the Lord. It is called Lamentations. Throughout this book, Jeremiah complains to God about how know one will accept or even appreciate his ministry. If you are depressed, Lamentations is not the book in the Bible to read. It is miserable from beginning to end – almost. Right in the middle of Lamentations, sandwiched between Jeremiah’s grief and sorrow, are these words from Lamentations 3:19-24: "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.


Right in the middle of his Land Between, in the depths of his despair, Jeremiah is able to testify that God has not abandoned him.

Jeremiah understood that in lament, in the very act of voicing our trouble to God, we begin a conversation in which we have opened ourselves up to His care, mercy and provision.

Now's here's the really interesting thing about Moses' lamentation. Remember how Moses poured out his heart to God? The burden of leading God’s grumbling people was too heavy for him. So Moses complained to the Lord about his situation (Numbers 11:11-15)

What happened after Moses complained to God about his situation? Did God give up on Moses? Did God walk away? Numbers 11:16-17 gives us God's response to Moses' complaints: "The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone."

God was so gracious to Moses that He poured out his Spirit on some of the very same people who had been complaining about him, not to him. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Not only did Moses' lamentation bring relief to him, but it became a blessing to the very people Moses was lamenting about!

What an amazing illustration of how God's mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.