Transcript:
so i’m just gonna invite cam to speak now because it’s just gonna work better i think for kim
cam is the lead pastor at the neighborhood church in vancouver it used to be called the south side church
he’s also the vp in charge of missional initiatives with north american baptist conference
and he is curtis’s friend and has been a mentor to curtis and we’ve been blessed
not only can by you but your friendship to curtis which has also rewards to us as well
thanks so welcome cam the floor is yours well thank you so much um
well you had me back although i’m not sure you had any choice because curtis set this up beforehand so you’re stuck
with me for a second week but boy that was fun last week and i was so sorry to sort of
ditch out on you right away but um i literally had about 30 seconds to move
from where i’m at in the church building here at our church to another area of the building where we
were holding our gathering and i went straight into another sermon so this is really kind of you today
to let me go a little bit early and i know that’s a bit odd for you you know to put sort of the talk
so early but um that helps me have a little bit more breathing space at the other end so
delightful to be with you again and um you know as i was preparing for this morning i just thought i
really needed like eight weeks to do this and i’m trying to cram it into two weeks
so thanks for your patience as i went quite quickly last week and we’ll do our best to sort of um not rush through
things this morning but there’s a lot here in this one verse that we began last week so let’s pick up
a little bit and if you remember last week we we began with this question
i was reading a book again this week that just underline this question again what difference does jesus
make in our lives you know if we stopped and thought about that for a minute you know we we
interact with our neighbors with our co-workers do they see jesus in us and if you
remember i started last week with a story of being in brazil and for those that weren’t here last
week you know the the gist of the story i won’t tell the whole thing again but i’m standing on
sugarloaf mountain looking up at christ the redeemer statue listening to the lord say to me hey cam what difference
does jesus make in your life and and you know like clouds get in the way sometimes we want to see jesus but
clouds get in the way and so sometimes we only get glimpses of jesus rather than seeing him fully all the time and
as christians we ask the question of you know there’s got to be more isn’t there more isn’t there more than what i’m
experiencing and then our non-christian friends our our neighbors our co-workers you know even family members look at us
sometimes and they go is that all so we do ask that question what difference does jesus make because the
way we see jesus changes so much the way we see jesus changes the way we
see scripture or the gospel the way we see others the world the way we see the church the way we see ourselves
so here’s this one verse that we’re taking these two weeks on but you’re a chosen people
a royal priesthood a holy nation god’s special possession
that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light
and if you remember there were three words guinness ethnos
and we only got to the first one last week genos that dealt with our identity
so i’ll finish that one off just a little bit for a minute or two this morning and then go into words two and
three ethnos and layoffs those three participles that make up that sentence that one verse
dealing with our identity our character and our vocation
so last week we started in with the first word but your chosen people and we learned that word guinness or
genus if you want to say it differently which really talked about our origins
the roots of who we are our story our identity and in order for us to
figure out who we are both individually and corporately we have to know a little bit more about who god is
and we used four things or we talked about four things about god he is one
love creator and father and if god is those four things then we
bear witness to who he is so if he’s our father we become his children and the
question is not who are you but whose are you so we got this far last week we said if
god is our father we’re his kids or we’re his children which means we’re spiritual beings we’re sons and
daughters of the king we’re image bearers god created us to be in his image and
that’s how far we got last week so let me pick it up a little bit if god is our
father we are his kids but if god is the creator
we become co-creators you know when we go back into genesis
chapter one when we read about god creating all things don’t we have this tendency to somehow
believe that well that was it god stopped creating at that point well you know that’s not true
god’s continually creating now he might not be creating new things in the sense of new species
all the time although i think we do keep seeing some new species show up but he’s continually
in the process of creating and part of that is as he co-creates with us or we
co-create with him now i don’t need to take long on this because i think this is pretty
self-explanatory certainly when husbands and wives come together they they participate in
co-creation there’s reproduction that happens shelley and i have four kids so we helped co-create these four kids but
we co-create with god in so many other ways through sports
the arts music i mean just think of handel’s messiah
right like handel was co-creating this beautiful piece of music that has
transformed so many people and uh and glorified god in the midst or or with
writing we do the same my dad used to joke with me when i was growing up in winnipeg he used to say things like i’m going to help you
co-create by going out in the garden and you can weed and i was like okay that’s enough of that i don’t need i’d like to
do some other kinds of co-creating but of course even gardening the way we tend to the garden
is part of co-creating same thing with our jobs i think so many times we christians get
it wrong because we think that that work somehow is you know this thing to be endured
rather than seeing it as part of part of god’s creation and how we continue to co-create with him if god is
father we’re his kids if god is creator we become co-creators if god is love
here was the third thing then we become conduits of his love remember we looked
just for a minute last week at first john chapter 4 verse 7 to 12 and it talks about the fact that god’s nature
is love all love comes he’s the originator the initiator the source
everything about him is love but then if you follow along in that text it says
god is love he showed us his love by sending his son and then it gives us our
task and our task is to become conduits of his love therefore learning to love one another
same thing in john chapter 13. if you remember right a new commandment i give you to love one another
by this all people will know that you’re my disciples so what happens
is when we learn to love one another both inside and outside the church
we end up becoming conduits of his love a demonstration of who he is
to the world around us so i i have to keep asking the question what difference does jesus make in my life do i become a
more loving person does god’s love flow through me more and more
or do people see a grumpy old guy and i have to keep asking that question
well here’s the final one and we could take six weeks just on this one if god is one
father son holy spirit then we too made in his image are one or
said differently we become a community of god’s people we have community with christ but we
have community with one another acts chapter 2 verse 42 to 47. it’s a beautiful passage most of
you will know it well right they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching the fellowship to breaking your bread to prayer and and and this is how they did
life together they shared their goods somebody had a problem and so somebody else sold stuff and they shared the
resources but there’s one little verse right at the end of that passage that’s always caught me
it says and they enjoyed the favor of all of the people
in the neighborhood we could write in there too right like everybody around them saw this wasn’t a collection of individuals
no this was a community of image bearers of christ
in fact it’s actually in community that we bear witness to who he is
so often we as the church have gotten caught up in identifying ourselves as individuals that go to such and such a
church but that wasn’t paul’s vision it certainly wasn’t jesus’s vision
of the community of god’s people of the church in the new testament no he and he says that we actually are in community
that’s where we get our identity not as individuals but in community
there’s a couple of authors that wrote a a pretty pretty good book um long title i won’t give it to you but
they said this a rejection of the church is a rejection of jesus way when we come to think that the christian
life is about our own development rather than our calling in christ as a family of god
we inevitably confuse the church for a secular entity
god is one god is love god is creator god is father
and therefore a christian is one who believes in this god
a christian is a christian is one who has a relationship with this god
a christian is one who participates in community with this god as a
spiritual being a child as part of the family
well that was the first word guinness and now let me dive in for the time that we’ve got left into words two and three
and the second word where he says a royal priesthood a holy nation the word that’s used is ethnos
now you’ll recognize that we almost use that in english don’t we when we talk about ethnicity
it’s the customs or the character of a certain group of people and so
here’s peter the peter that said my identity is now belonging as a new
father a new family but now my character oh i need to see that change too and in
essence what we’re saying is if i have a new father we need to be like our father well back
up in your bibles from first peter chapter two to first peter chapter one because you’ll notice that what peter
says in verse 16 he’s quoting from the old testament where the father speaks and says be holy
because i’m holy so if we’re going to be like our father we need to learn how he’s holy and what that means
towards our characters in the way that we live so here’s a question to just ponder for
a minute before we go much further who do you look like more who do you act
like more your mom or your dad you notice how we we just became grandparents a couple of months ago and
we’re already having this conversation of little kaden three months old and um
who does he look more like does he look more like mike my son-in-law does he look like christy our daughter and then
you know sometimes we even go as far as saying they look like the grandparents but who do you look like more who do you
act like more mom or dad now i don’t know how
good this shows up on your screen now my screen is pretty good but this is a newspaper article and i don’t know if
you can read it saturday in uh september i think it is of
1971 april 17th 1971 we had moved to vancouver
and my dad was both a soccer player and a pastor and on the left the left picture is my
dad with me as a six-year-old and uh he dad’s teaching me the finer
things about soccer there and i grew up loving soccer grew up playing soccer and played at a good level but then over on
the right uh i think he’s dressed dad’s dressed in a purple polyester suit with the biggest
bible you’ve ever seen in your life certainly not on our phones like we have these days perhaps
but the point of this picture is that you know when i was a little kid as most little boys do
they want to grow up to be like their dad and the same is true or same should be
true for us as followers of jesus we want to grow up in our faith
to become like our father be holy as i am holy our father says now what
does holiness mean well i i think most of us know pretty quickly that one of the definitions and
it’s not wrong it’s certainly part right anyways and holiness means to be set apart right
like there’s something unique about it and so there’s this holiness or this set apartness
we see this in places in the old testament like in the jews when they
with the with the temple and also with the tabernacle but they had this place called the holy of holies
and and certainly when we got to the temple in jerusalem the holy of holies was this inner sanctum that one priest
once per year could go in and i don’t know if you know the story but they used to tie a rope around the priest’s ankle
and they put a bell around his neck because if he got into the holy of holies and had some kind of incredible
vision of god he might either faint or die and if he fell over the bell would
ring and then they would know to pull the rope and be able to pull this guy out because it was only one person once
a year allowed into that space it was so holy it was set apart
same thing with the ark of the covenant where they kept the ten commandments remember the story where a couple of
guys are carrying this thing and it it sort of slips and they go to grab it and instead of
grabbing the pole they actually grab the ark and remember what happened to them they died why because it was so holy
that you can’t even can they touch this there’s that sort of picture of set
apartments that we get but i want to offer to you for a few minutes this morning i think if we’re going to become like
our father be holy because i’m holy a better definition of holy if we actually look
at all of scripture holiness doesn’t just mean set apart it
means set apart to enter back in for the greatest example of holiness
is of course jesus holiness is how god lives out his name
well what do i mean what am i talking about i want to give you a couple things about
holiness that i think are helpful things that we can hang on to so i think part of holiness that jesus
demonstrated is that he was in the world not just set apart outside
of the world but he came into the world you know the verse in john chapter 1
verse 14 the word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood this is the message translation
we saw the glory with our own eyes the one of a kind glory like father like son
generous inside and out true from start to finish
one of the commentators that i read on this verse said that when when john’s writing this
and he says we saw his glory it propelled
everyone that read it into saying we didn’t just look at it but we had to become like that
even in our own being so jesus demonstrates holiness by being in the world
now you’re wondering why i’ve got this old decrepit tennis racket on the screen
my wife shelley is a tennis player she was a pro tennis player i mean i was pretty good at soccer but she was really
into tennis and played all the big tennis tournaments including the us open which is coming up in a couple of weeks
again and uh so now she coaches and she’s coached for years and years and years
but shelley’s also involved in a ministry or was involved in a ministry here in vancouver called night shift and
night shift is in an area of town that there’s lots of people that have have had pretty tough lives and
they’re you know they’ve been on some drug addictions they’ve got some mental illness and it’s been a pretty tough place and
so you know you get lots of christians that say we’re going to go into this neighborhood and we’re going to do some
pretty nice things we’re going to take god into this neighborhood to carefully
well i went with her one night and um that morning as we got up i knew i was gonna have a pretty long day and
then show up at this place with her i looked in the back of her car now
shelley gets the most expensive tennis racquets given to her for free some of
the top tennis companies they will give her free rackets as a form of advertising right but i walked past her
car that morning and saw this old wooden tennis racket with strings busted and
out of place and i just thought that’s so weird what in the world is that all about
well later that day i i show up at night shift and i’m there sort of helping and i get talking to one of the guys
that’s there i thought you know okay i’m coming to the end of my day and i’ll go do this good deed oh i was so foolish
and i’ll take god into this neighborhood i had a lot to learn
i’m standing there talking to one of the guys that’s there and great conversation and i started asking him about his life
and things he’s done and the jobs he’s had and the people he knows and then i said uh why are you here he
says oh i don’t need to be here i you know i i live on the street but i i i
could get a job if i wanted i said okay yeah i wasn’t being judgmental
he says um there’s something about this place there’s something about these people that gather together he says i
can’t quite put my finger on it but um there’s something unique that just keeps
drawing me back into this place i said well tell me about it give me an
example so he points at my wife he didn’t know she was my wife but he points at my wife
and he says um see that lady over there he says couple weeks ago it was one of
those really really cold bitter nights now i know in winnipeg bitter is very different than in vancouver but it was
cold still here in vancouver and so he says look at that lady i i watched her as she cared for people and it was so
cold that at one point i saw her take off what looked like a new jacket a new coat
and give it to a woman who didn’t have any he said who does that
who who gives up their coat for somebody else he said no it’s people like her and the
conversations that happen here that are so well they just keep drawing me back so i
said so what did you do he said well i i know she loves tennis
so i got together all the money i had and i went to the pawn shop and i bought her
a tennis racket the penny dropped
the old wooden racket in the back of shelley’s car the one that you know she would never
have used this man in the midst of all of
all the tough stuff he was going through had taken every cent he had
and bought my wife a tennis racket this was his way of responding
and right at that moment this was another one of those god moments i had to stop
and i heard the lord say you thought you brought me here no
i’m already present and i’m already at work in these people i’m already in the world
if you want to be like me come and join me in these kinds of things so friends jesus is in the world
but jesus is also for the world you know the verse god so loved the world that he gave his only son he’s for
us in fact his name even means that you remember when moses
is standing with god at the burning bush and uh and he’s amazed because this bush is on
fire but it’s not being consumed and god says take off your shoes you’re standing on
holy ground and then he says to moses one of the things he says is your forefathers abraham isaac and jacob
they knew me as and he uses the word el shaddai el shaddai means the almighty
one but he says i want you to know me as i am
or he says it differently yahweh when you study the book of exodus where
this scene comes from you can’t help but understand that yahweh the name yahweh carries with it
so much and it was so holy that the jews were afraid to even say it or write it
but when you study what it means it means three things i’m the god who redeems
the god who leads to life but here’s the third thing
for the sake of the world that’s what the name meant you see god’s name even means he’s
for the world and when people look at you and i do they see people who are against things
or who are for things i don’t know if any of you recognize
howard stern stern’s not exactly the epitome of a
person that we all want to be like a little bit funny but most of the time
really really crude i remember him from being on that show america’s got talent
a number of years ago uh with some of our north american baptist pastors i took about 25 of them down to ohio with
me and we were in this big church and the pastor was telling a story how every
sunday um they would do sort of contemporary topics and they were doing a series once called what would jesus
say to and they had this great big billboard
my church your church isn’t big enough to have this but they were right on a big highway and they had this great big
billboard that announced the topic of the sermon for the next week with thousands of cars
driving into the city so early monday morning this uh guy who’s in charge of the billboard gets up and he he puts the
name of the title of the sermon for the following week up in the billboard and the billboard said
what would jesus say to howard stern okay well you know where this is going
all these cars driving past seeing the name of the sermon what would jesus say to howard stern what do you think is going to happen so one of them phones
the howard stern show who’s you know he has a radio show he phones the howard stern so and he says hey this church in
ohio is going to do a sermon on what would jesus say to howard stern so what do you think howard stern does well he
picks up the phone he phones the church now fortunately somebody else answered the phone and said well you know the
pastor is busy right now but i’ll get him to phone you back okay so crisis averted but he did phone
him back and they made a deal that the pastor would come on howard stern’s
radio show late that week in order to sort of give people a a little taste of what the sermon was
gonna be all about so here comes the show they’re praying hard he’s getting people all over the place
to pray howard stern phones them up it’s time to have this interview howard stern’s crude makes all kinds of jokes
and off color but finally howard stern gets to the point where on national radio
he says okay so what pastor what would jesus say to me
now i know that we as christians would come up with lots of things like don’t do this don’t do that don’t do all these
other things the pastor had the absolute best answer he could have had he said
howard it’s really really simple what jesus would say to you he would say
howard i am for you you know so often we
we feel and act the opposite holiness is jesus is in the world but
he’s also for the world and so often we as god’s people who are supposed to be made in his image end up acting the
complete opposite of that it’s like we’re against everything that the world does
that doesn’t mean we have to agree with the world but they need to know that we’re
for them in order to be holy well here’s the third one in the world for the world
with the world and we know even jesus’s name right that
god is with us emmanuel jesus is with the world he moved into
the neighborhood and took up residency and was with us and what was his reputation
he was the friend of sinners a wine bible a glutton all those kinds
of things why because he ended up being with so often we as christians want to do
things for somebody like we want we want to do something but sometimes what’s really needed the
most that’s needed is that we learn to be with the world
well let me leave that one there jesus is in the world for the world with the world and friends i want to do i want to
suggest to you that that’s what holiness is all about and when peter says be holy
because our father’s holy he’s telling us to be in the world
for the world and with the world but you are a chosen people
a royal priesthood a holy nation god’s special possession that you may declare
the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light
well we’ve got one more word and i’ll do this quite quickly genus identity we have a new father
ethnicist character we want to be like our father now the third word the third word
god’s special possession is laos and it’s about our vocation
or said in common english there’s a family business and we’re invited to come join it new dad be like
our dad come join the family business well what is the family business
you’ve got to understand that our father god is a missionary in nature not just his
actions but in his very nature before the creation of the world he was a missionary in that relationship between
father son and spirit right always this sort of explosion this this bubbling up
of love that ended up creating all things but before that was in relationship but as soon as we come to
scripture we can’t help but see over and over and over again this sending nature of who
god is how did he create the world he sent his word how did he create his people he
sent his word in fact 220 times we certainly don’t have time for it today
220 times in the old testament alone it says that god sends his word
and reality comes into place sends his word to the prophets through the judges
through kings through all kinds of people when we come to the new testament and we
see one more time god sends his word
through his son and the story that god’s been creating all the way through history
well it becomes our story you see the bible is an account of god’s story with his people it’s not just
rules it’s not just facts or principles it’s an account of god’s story with his
people and our story becomes alive when it intersects with god’s story
well i’m almost done but let me give you a few things before we quit
this is peter who’s writing he knows about identity changing because
his name used to be simon and jesus changed it he says you’re now peter on this rock i’ll build my church
he knows about a character shift i mean peter was the guy that would always open his mouth and insert his foot
but by the time we get to acts acts chapter 4 he gets put in prison but
the those that are making the decision about what they’re going to do they they make note it says in acts chapter 4
verse 12 and 13 they make note that peter had been with jesus
changed but he knows about a change of vocation too
luke chapter 5 verse 1 through 11 you remember the scene there’s peter a fisherman end of the night well early in the
morning actually it’s probably 10 or 11 in the morning jesus comes along and he says hey peter can i use your boat i
want to push out into the lake a little bit it becomes this natural amplification system
peter hadn’t caught anything he was tired he’d been up early fishing nothing bad day at the office putting everything
away lets jesus use the boat and then jesus comes in and has the audacity to say to peter i think you should go
fishing again i mean jesus is a carpenter peter’s the fisherman you don’t fish in the middle
of the day you fish early in the morning but that beautiful word that peter uses
he says but lord because you say so i’m gonna do it doesn’t make any sense what
you’re saying but i’m gonna do it and you know how it comes out he catches more fish than they’ve ever caught before the nets begin to rip what does
peter do there’s that impulsivity again he jumps out of the boat comes up onto shore stands before jesus in that
beautiful line where jesus says oh peter if you think this is impressive wait to see what i’m gonna do with the rest of
your life for it’s okay to be a fisherman but it’s so much better to understand
your vocation your jobs as a fisherman but your vocation will become as a fisher of people
in luke chapter 10 we see this beautiful story where jesus sends out the 72.
luke chapter 9 he sends the 12. luke chapter 1 through 8 he goes himself and he takes his disciples with him but by
the time we get to luke 10 he sends the 72 others and the point that we need to hear out of this text i’m not going to
go through at all the point we need to hear from this text is
that when a jew reads 72 it’s like we as canadians reading infinity
in other words jesus didn’t just send out some he sends out all of us
see the reality is you can’t be part of the family of god you can’t be
holy without also recognizing that jesus sends us
to the very places where he’s about to go and he sends us to go into people’s houses and practice hospitality he sends
us to go into towns to heal the sick who are there and to proclaim the kingdom of god has come near
and when we go into these places we actually need to take a certain
strategy see we’ve fallen into the rut haven’t we as christians where we say things like
you know i’m gonna i’m gonna invite my my friends to come to church and i’m gonna get them to pray a prayer
so they can get into heaven when they die but jesus didn’t employ that strategy
john the baptist was walking along one day and and two of his disciples james and andrew
they both had brothers you know them as john and peter but james and andrew are following john the baptist andrew
is there and then all of a sudden john the baptist says look there’s the one over there the lamb of god the one who takes away the sins of the world
you know i’m not even unfit to tie his sandals so what does andrew do he goes and hangs out with jesus and
what does andrew do at the end of the day this is the important part he runs home to peter
and he gives them the four spiritual laws no he doesn’t he runs home to peter and he says to
peter peter my brother come and see i think we found the messiah
and peter goes and then the next day they hang out together four or five of them they start hanging out with jesus
and what does jesus say to them i am inviting you to follow me
and so for the next three years they leave everything behind they put everything they can into this basket of
following jesus and the last thing that jesus says before he goes to heaven goes up into
the heavens with his father he says go and make disciples you remember this passage in matthew chapter 28
then the 11 disciples went to galilee to the mountain where jesus had told them to go when they saw him they worshipped him
but some doubted then jesus came to them and said all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me therefore
here it is go and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the father
the son and the holy spirit teaching them to obey everything i’ve commanded you and surely
i’m with you always to the very end of the age peter’s there
listening to these words of jesus he he’s he’s heard andrew come and see he’s
he’s received the invitation from jesus to follow and now he’s being commissioned
go into all the world and make disciples now you’ve got to understand when peter
heard the word disciple he didn’t hear it the same way you and i do because i think what we’ve done is we’ve got
clouds in the way right and we’ve we’ve shrunk this so a disciple to us means somebody who actually agrees with the
teaching of jesus but that’s not what the word meant at all what is the word disciple or in
aramaic talmudim what does it actually mean it means somebody who puts into
practice the very things that jesus was doing and then he says baptizing them and here’s
what peter would have heard baptizing them into the reality
of the father son of the holy spirit but in other words changing their identity baptizing them into the reality of being
in community with god so they put into practice they become holy they put into practice all that
jesus did and they are now their new identity is becoming part of the people of god
what’s the vocation becoming a fisher of people and
making disciples of all these people well last thing
last slide there was one other little thing that was really curious there as jesus was
giving these final instructions uh matthew put it that way go into all the world and make disciples luke
did it a little bit differently and you know that luke and acts go together so right at the beginning of acts when jesus was giving final instructions he
says but you will receive power when the holy spirit comes on you you will be my witnesses in jerusalem all
judea and samaria to the ends of the earth the you that’s there
we often read as me you and you and you and you individuals
that’s not true the you is corporate
but you my chosen people royal priesthood holy nation
my special possession collectively corporately
identity found in me [Music] you will receive power when the holy
spirit comes on you collective corporate communal
and you corporate will be a community of my witnesses who
bear witness to being image makers because you’re my sons and daughters
made in my image holy as i am holy not set apart but entering back in
and i am sending you out to finish the work that i’ve begun
in jerusalem judaism samaria the ends of the earth so good to be with you these two weeks i
would love the privilege of just blessing you with a prayer before i let you get on with what the rest of
the gathering has can i pray for you
so father we say thanks that in christ
we are a new creation not just a collection of individuals but a community of your people
like christ we become holy oh not because we follow all the rules
but because we learn to live lives that are in for and with the world around us
and then we join with christ as we go into all the world and we bless you not only have you
changed our identity and our character you’ve changed our vocation or our jobs might be all kinds of
different things but lord really our purpose our vocation is that we get to participate with you
in the redemption of all things we get to tell how our story has been changed we get to tell how your story is
changing all things we get to invite people not to pray a prayer
but to be introduced to you and we bless you for that and i pray that these dear brothers and sisters of
mine and winnipeg i pray that they would know all three of those things new identity new character
new vocation we pray this in jesus name and for the kingdom’s sake
amen thanks kim so as cam leaves us i’m going to just invite us to take some time to reflect
on the things that we’ve just heard the one question that kind of umbrella to overarch the whole two times of his
talk was what is the difference that jesus makes in your life
so reflect on that reflect on the specific things that he said and let’s talk about that together
and pray for one another in that context so that question
what difference does having jesus or knowing jesus in your life what
difference does that make to your life and just based on the things that cam
had described to us that idea about the way that we see jesus affects the way we see everything
basically the idea of knowing that god is for us
in jesus with us in jesus invites us to be co-creator in jesus
with him in this world so just going to leave it open so i’m
going to keep an eye on those of you on zoom if you want to just raise your hand and wave at us
but just to go up to the mic to respond to that and we’re just going to offer that back to
god in acknowledgment of who he is and in praise of who he is good thing to reflect on
this week i’ve had a number of conversations with people who are quite stressed and finding it very difficult to make
good decisions and i reflect upon jesus or god holding
my hand and because of that i can encourage them and so
that’s that’s the difference that has made for me in my life yeah
kind of reflecting on the stuff that i read out of corinthians this morning that idea
of you know it it doesn’t necessarily have to look pretty to the rest of the world
that i am called into this co-creating relationship with the creator
and he knows exactly the role the vocation that he’s called me to and it doesn’t
look like this person or that person’s or it doesn’t have to be impressive to the
rest of the world and i was so encouraged by paul’s honest reflection on his own
at the time what seemed an impressive resume of hardship
he knew though that he was doing exactly what god was calling him to do and
his identity was in the one who called him and there’s great hope and peace in that
so being in the world in that context is also a comfort to me
i think that one of the main dynamics that having
a relationship with jesus in an ongoing sense puts in play for me is that i am i would
say i am not naturally a hopeful person i am not naturally somebody who is
optimistic i am probably not someone who naturally
likes other humans i think that left to my very own devices
i would probably be involved in something where i could live almost completely in my brain
something invented engineering in a lab or something like that where i didn’t actually deal with humans much
or i would be dead because there’s really no realistic reason to be hopeful and that would have kicked in i would
say in my early 20s by the latest so those would be my two natural
kind of choices or paths and so the fact that
that those sort of natural bents keep getting challenged and keep getting
turned in a different direction and and i keep having to broaden my approach and
broaden what i consider and take in more complications and go with more uncertainty than i would
naturally tolerate or like that is that’s pretty huge and i would say that that dynamic is definitely
ongoing in a daily sense that challenge to my natural bent was not a one-time thing it’s ongoing so
yeah that’s great that’s really good i think one of the
big differences it’s made in my life i think a lot a lot of people most i
think most people uh including a lot of christians see things in terms of scarcity
and god has shown me that the fact that i can’t do
it it certainly doesn’t mean he can’t and that he can’t use me to do it
and i’ve approached a lot of things on that basis you know taking on things like you know what do i know you know
how can i you know that you know how how can i do this and
that he’s done it yeah you know when i look back on a lot of
things say you know what did i do i was involved but really the fact that it turned out to be
unbelievably more than i could have imagined it wasn’t me doing it it was
god doing it cam talked about you know jesus sending out you know his disciples and then
sending out the 72 was that in their own power of course not no
it was in jesus power and god’s power i think that’s been one of the many
differences it’s made in my life but one that’s significant that’s great barry
okay so i’m going to just invite based on the things that we’ve shared about
one or two people to pray for us this morning in response to that and then i’ll close and then we will
sing our last song father thank you
for the things that you have taught us this morning god you are our father
and you are good god you are love you are one
you are our creator father thank you for your body the
church thank you for the instruction we heard the reminder this morning
that we are community and that you
show your power in us all together
and so god i want to pray for the unity of this body of us here at new life ministries
that as we are baptized into the trinity as
we are baptized into god that we are baptized into
this community as well that you dwell within us
and father and so i pray and ask for unity for this church
for our leadership for our members for those who attend here
that as we all reflect you as individuals
that when others look at us they would see a full reflection of who you are
and that we would think of ourselves as one
that we would receive your calling upon us as one that we would reach out to those around
us as one that we would love each other
as a part of our own body
and father will you please help us create the space
to hear from you through each other as you have given us all gifts
and who we are in our personalities may we use these instruments as
instruments for righteousness and not for unrighteousness and so god we ask for your help
that you would rescue us together that you would redeem us together
and that you would send us together and may you be pleased
well thank you for your word thank you for your servants
we worship you this morning amen
heavenly father we thank you for how you have drawn us to you
and that you have worked in our lives and you have made a difference
and god we just pray that we may respond to the call to your call
that you have for each one of us each day and in the different situations we come
into and god help us to respond the way you want us to respond help us to
realize that you are holding your hand you are walking before us
you are you are with us in that situation and that you are gracious and forgiving
and kind and compassionate and that you will help us you will never leave us or forsake us
oh god we just thank you for who you are and that just pray that we can follow you
and as a church together we can follow you and follow your directions thank you for your blessing in jesus
name amen dear god i just want to
also ask that you would help us to be attentive and
understand or pick up on the ways that you are calling us to love one another
we pray father that where we feel inadequate or
ill-equipped unable whatever the situation is lord thank you that you are calling us into
relationships where you already know the house and you
provide the strength and the means please help us to
recognize what you have resourced us with help us to find the way
of your provision that we might participate with you in loving one another
creatively and with joy father we pray this
for the encouragement of this body and pray this father that for your
name’s sake lord that the witness of your presence in amongst us would be
clear to those around us as well we commit the rest of this time to you
lord we pray for restoration for folks this day a day of rest and
restoration if that’s what’s called for and father for the week ahead thank you
that you go before us that you are already there and that you do the work
thank you lord for what you are faithful to do and accomplish for your honor and your glory and your
good pleasure amen thank you for listening to our podcast today
new life ministries is located in winnipeg manitoba you are invited to join our service in
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