A Little Help Here

^“One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

John 5:5-7

 

Jesus, why do you ask if he wants to be well, the guy clearly has been seeking healing for 38 years!!!  Even more shocking is the answer Jesus gets.  If Jesus asked me this question, the answer would be simple, “Yes please.”  Instead Jesus is given excuses for why it has not already happened.

 

It’s easy to look down on the man for not just saying, yes to Jesus, but are we much different?  In any 12 step program, the first step is reaching an awareness of your need for change or healing.  “Hi my name is Tony, and I’m an alcoholic.”  Once you have an awareness of your need for change, the remaining steps involve your action and involvement.  Jesus question perhaps is less about the man’s desire to be healed, but instead are you ready and willing to be healed?

 

You want to be healed financially; to get out of debt, to put some money away, Jesus says do you want to be healed?  Walk away from finding joy in a shopping bag, or happiness in the latest gadget.

 

You want healing in your relationship with your kids; Jesus says do you want to be healed?  Taking on an extra project at work or agreeing to more travel may not help you find what you are looking for.  Joining another club, or working more from home and likely not going to lead you to the place of healing you are seeking either.

 

You want healing in a broken relationship; Jesus says do you want to be healed?  Holding a grudge, or starting rumors about the other person are not going to lead you down the path to healing.

 

Do you want to be healed?  Jesus reminds us that he is the great physician, able to heal both the body and the soul.  Jesus reminds us in scripture, “I am…” I am what you need, I am the great physician.  Are you open to the great physician?  Or are you filled with excuses?  Or just not listening for His work all around you?

 

Pastor Bill

 

Discussion Questions

1. What is one place that you want Jesus’ healing in your life?
2. What might healing look like?

New

Mark 2:21-22

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”

 

Jesus says these words in response to religious leaders who were questioning him because Jesus’ disciples were not fasting like other people were.  They wondered why not, why are you different, why this new way of doing things?  Why can’t you just be like everyone else?

 

But Jesus and his followers understood something others did not. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV)  To follow Jesus meant all was new.  Most people struggle with new, we are much more willing to compromise, to take a little new with a lot of the old.  We like to add some new things, but keep all the old stuff too.  But Jesus anticipates this, and makes it clear, you don’t combine the two.  New life in Jesus is new life.  It does not mean you add a few new things like a patch or another layer to your life, but that all things are made new in Jesus.

 

2012 is a new year.  It will be unlike 2011, and different than any other year you have lived before.  We can handle this new reality in one of two ways.  We can dig in our heels, and try to go back to the way it was, to complain about all that was, which is not very constructive, or we can explore the new reality of today.  We can try to live in the past, or we can live in the present God has placed us in.  We can think about what was, or we can live into all that God has blessed us with new. 

 

Second Corinthians reminds you that the moment you say yes to God, you say yes to new.  Yes to transformation, yes to change, yes to things not being like they always have been, and yes to life to the fullest in Jesus.  Yes to new opportunities, new friendships, and new growth.

 

Pastor Bill

 

Discussion Questions:

 

1. What new has God placed in your life as we begin 2012?
2. How might God be stretching you in a new way?
3. What makes new most challenging for you?

Good Vibrations

The lights dim in the movie theater, the stadium starts to roar as fans jump to their feet; you can feel the rumbling and hear the noise of the parade in the distance.  Then something happens, the feature film starts on the movie screen, the players come running out of the locker room, the marching bands and floats pass by in the street.  For each you knew something was about to happen before it ever did.  You could feel it, you could sense it.  The lights dimming told you the movie was going to start, the fans roaring before the players entered the field, the vibrations of the drums and feet of the marching band in the parade, all serve as signs of something that is yet to come.

We read in the bible in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah experiences this first hand.  It says, “At the sound of their voices the door posts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” (Isaiah 6:4, TNIV)  Kind of sounds like a rock concert doesn’t it?  The temple literally is shaking on the foundation, filling with smoke, all to show that God is showing up.  I had someone say to me a few weeks back, I wish God would reach out to me in blatant ways that he did in Scripture.  I wish he would come to my living room, fill my house with smoke, write a note to me in the stars, just something easy to understand and hard to miss.

Who says God is not trying to speak to us?  At a movie no one gets scared when the lights go down, no one thinks that the power is out, instead we get excited that the movie is beginning, we anticipate the movie coming.  When everyone stands up, and cheers real loud, we get excited because we know it is about time for our team to take the field.  When we hear noise and rumblings in a distance at the beginning of a parade, our heart skips a beat because we know that they are on the move coming our way soon.  We learn to make sense of the commotion, the vibrations, and get excited because the vibrations tell us something big is about to happen.  There is a tangible sense of expectation that we experience.

What if God has something huge brewing for our lives right now?  Would we even know that it is coming?  Are we even listening to see if there are some good vibrations coming that we would tell us something big from God is just around the corner?

Pastor Bill

Discussion Questions

1. Do you believe that God can show up in our lives?  What might it look like?
2. What vibrations might we sense that tell us God is up to something?
3. Do you sense any vibrations of God at work in your life right now?  How?

You ought to…

How many times have you heard someone say “you ought to…”?  You ought to lose 10 pounds, you ought to exercise more, you ought to quit smoking, work less, get more sleep, spend more time with your family, and the list could go on and on.  In each case you are being asked to consider something that needs to change, something that you are not doing, or something that you need to stop doing.  Often we are being asked to consider something that currently is not being done, or to consider what might be done if only.  More often these ought to statements ask us to do or see something that is tough to imagine.  If you ought to stop smoking after 20 years of a pack a day, a life without smoking may seem unrealistic.  If you ought to spend more time with your family, but currently work 85 hours and travel 5 days a week, then more time with them may seem impossible.

Former United States Ambassador Max Kampelman says this about the power of ought, “We must recognize the power of the ought.  It’s the power to change the world.  When we see the world in terms of how things ought to be, we can dream for the impossible, and work to see it become a reality.”

So then what ought to be at our church?  What ought to be in our personal lives?  We ought to be living out our vision as a church of being, Community Focused, Caring, Growing, and Open to All People.  We ought to be the hands of feet of Jesus Christ.  But what ought to be specifically?  That is our key focus during our upcoming time of prayer.  What ought to be in our future?  What is it that God is specifically calling us to as we go forward as a church?  It is not just asking what ought to be, it is asking big.  As Kampelman says, when we can dream large enough to see what should be, that currently is not, we can see a picture of how to start working toward what once seemed impossible.

But as we pray together, I want to remind you of this quote, “If we want to reach people and see things that we have never seen before, then we are going to need to do things that we have never done before.” Pastor Craig Groeschel.  So as we pray for guidance, clarity, and wisdom from God, we have to be prepared that what God says ought to be. God may call us to something new, different, uncomfortable, or challenging. If that is what God say ought to be, then what would stop us from doing what we have been called to?

A New You

On January 1, a new television channel was launched.  This entire channel was dedicated to one person, Oprah Winfrey.  The Oprah Channel or OWN debuted with fanfare, anticipation, and excitement as 2011 opened.  Oprah’s legacy and following has been strong of over 25 years, and her popular message has been consistent throughout.  Transformation.  Look at Oprah’s Book Club bestsellers; they are often stories of underdogs transforming their lives into something better.  Oprah’s show is watched by millions and millions because people love to see her guests, experience transformation and growth first hand.  We love to watch and see lives changed into something new, something better.  We watch with excitement as we see them become a whole new you.

I believe that we have been hard-wired to seek transformation, that there is something powerful about it that fascinates us.  We hear it coming from scripture in 2 Corinthians  5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”  And then again in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26, TNIV, my emphasis added)  God has built us for transformation; it is meant to be the norm of how we function as believers.  But if we are honest with ourselves, often our lives fall into a rhythm or even a rut.  We do things the same way day in and day out.  We get up at the same time, watch the same shows, and eat the same foods.  Then we turn on Oprah or reality TV, and we see someone else change, we see someone else break the mold, and a part of us leaps inside.  A part of us comes alive just seeing transformation, and we may think to ourselves, I wish I could do that or be that way.

But we can be.  2 Corinthians did not say if you are in Christ, you might be a new creation, it says that you are supposed to be a new creation.  We are made to be transformed by the Holy Spirit.  When God gets inside of us and our church, our lives should look different, we should talk different, and spend money different.  But when faced with the opportunity for transformation, growth, or change, we rarely take the chance.  We are fearful of the unknown and the cost of something new and unfamiliar.  I believe that God has a message of transformation and change coming for His Church and for His people.  I believe that God is going to show us what transformation will look like, but are we ready to accept the cost and do what it takes.

We can begin this transformation by simply engaging.  Each time we read the Bible we change a little, each time we pray God transforms us a little.  Join a small group, serve at a soup kitchen, go on a mission trip, mentor a child and teach Sunday school.  God may say, remove this from church, change how you do this, start this.  If we are faithful to what he calls us to do, trust me, in no time we will quickly see a whole new you.