Power Moves

II Timothy 1:7

(outline for Wednesday, Jan. 28) 

You have the opportunity to exercise power in a way that honors God.

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.  II Timothy 1:7 NIV

And the special gift of ministry you received when I laid hands on you and prayed—keep that ablaze! God doesn't want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible.     II Timothy 1:6-7 The Message

 

• Power is the exercise of authority or influence.
• Socially
• Politically
• Economically
• Spiritually

• Power has positive and negative polarities.

• Examples of negative power moves:
• Intimidation-
• Manipulation-
• Usury
• Violence
• Terror

• Examples of positive power moves:
• Positive persuasion
• Positive influence
• Charity
• Non-violence
• Sacrificial service

• You must choose how you use your power and influence.

Your home, your school, your vocation, your social network, your faith community and your arenas of recreation all present dynamic opportunities for you to serve honorably with the power entrusted to you.

Fasting: Hungry for the Right Stuff

Matthew 6:16-18

(sermon outline for Sunday January 25)

Central idea: The discipline of fasting may allow believers to grow spiritually and choose wisely.

When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint. If you 'go into training' inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well.

                                    Matthew 6:16-18 The Message

There are several good reasons that fasting should be discussed and practiced among God’s people:

1) The Bible encourages it.

2) Jesus fasted.

3) Disciples across the ages fasted.

4) There are many more addictive behaviors now than at any time in human history.

5) These are tough times and tough times challenge us to practice tough disciplines.

Outline: Let’s consider a few of the common questions that are brought to the table when talking about fasting:

1. What is fasting?

Fasting is voluntarily abstaining from a normal function, such as eating, for the sake of intense spiritual inquiry or transformation.

2. Why fast?

a. To focus on God

b. To free yourself from a habit or addiction

c. To find God’s direction

3. What are some types of fasts?

a. Food fast (partial food fast, complete fast)

b. Activity fast (e.g. golf, fishing, hunting, scrapbooking, tennis, needlepoint, Bunko)

c. Social fast (day of solitude with no contact with friends)

d. Technology fast (ipod, cell phone, blackberry, laptop, texting)

(Note: *Ash Wednesday, on February 25 this year, is the first day of Lent, a time set aside for believers to voluntarily abstain from some favored food or activity for 40 days in order to prepare for Holy Week.)

4. “Should I fast?”

a. When you are searching passionately for God’s direction.

b. When you are in a spiritual drought.

c. When you join with other believers in praying for an extraordinary intervention.

d. When you are learning to live a spiritually disciplined life.

Summary: In your faith journey, you may be invited or challenged to participate in the spiritual discipline of fasting to more fully concentrate on God, to confirm or clarify your sense of spiritual direction, or to passionately intercede on behalf of another.   When you fast, fast privately and fast faithfully.

The goal of this discipline, like all the spiritual disciplines, is to help you be an effective follower of Jesus. 

 

Caring for Your Personal Health: Being Fit to Serve

(outline for Sunday evening January 18)

Introduction:

1. Maintaining your personal health is a part of your stewardship of life.

2. When I talk with couples who are getting married I typically explain that caring for your health is a part of the marriage vows they will affirm to each other during the ceremony.

3. No matter how negligent you have been in the past, it is not too late to begin taking care of your health.

Outline:

1. If your body is the primary residence of God’s Spirit, do good housekeeping.

19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. I Corinthians 6:19 NIV

2. Adopt a diet and exercise program compatible with your stature and lifestyle.

GENESIS 1:29 "Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."

From LEVITICUS 11:1-30 "And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 'Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ''These are the animals which you may eat among all the beasts that are on the earth:

(MAMMALS) Among the beasts, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud that you may eat. Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; the rock hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; the hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.

(FISH) These you may eat of all that are in the water: whatever in the water has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers that you may eat. But all in the seas or in the rivers that do not have fins and scales, all that move in the water or any living thing which is in the water, they are an abomination to you. They shall be an abomination to you; you shall not eat their flesh, but you shall regard their carcasses as an abomination. (This would include oysters, shrimp, clams, lobster, turtle, and catfish.) Whatever in the water does not have fins or scales - that shall be an abomination to you.

(FOWL) And these you shall regard as an abomination among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, the kite, and the falcon after its kind; every raven after its kind, the ostrich, the short-eared owl, the sea gull, and the hawk after its kind; the little owl, the fisher owl, and the screech owl; the white owl, the jackdaw, and the carrion vulture; the stork, the heron after its kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.

(INSECTS) All flying insects that creep on all fours shall be an abomination to you. Yet these you may eat of every flying insect that creeps on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to leap on the earth. These you may eat: the locust after its kind, the destroying locust after its kind, the cricket after its kind, and the grasshopper after its kind. But all other flying insects which have four feet shall be an abomination to you.

(RODENTS, REPTILES) These also shall be unclean to you among the creeping things that creep on the earth: the mole, the mouse, and the large lizard after its kind; The gecko, the monitor lizard, the sand reptile, the sand lizard, and the chameleon.'"

3. Schedule regular physical examinations.

4. Recognize the connectivity between physical health and emotional health.

5. Practice Sabbath rest.

To regular cease from your usual labor and enjoy a change of pace and change of place.

Summary: Caring for your personal health is one of the ways you can maximize your capacity to serve.

Prayer: Talking Honest to God

(sermon outline for Sunday January 18)

Luke 11:1-4

Central idea: To grow in your faith you can practice the discipline of listening attentively and talking honestly to God.

 1One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

 2He said to them, "When you pray, say:
   " 'Father,
   hallowed be your name,
   your kingdom come.
 3Give us each day our daily bread.
 4Forgive us our sins,
      for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
   And lead us not into temptation.' "   Luke 11:1-4 NIV

As we are encouraged to grow in our daily practice of prayer, consider the following focal points:

• Prayer is dialogue not monologue.

Prayer is ongoing and open-ended conversation with God.

If we really want prayer, we’ll have to give it time.  We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen.  And as soon as we listen to what’s going on, things will begin to take shape by themselves....                         Thomas Merton

• God can handle brutal honesty in your prayers.

Some of us pray highly agnostic prayers as if we are speaking to a pompous and yet naïve deity who wants to be flattered and pampered but who is out of touch with the real world.  And yet, the genuineness of fervent and faithful prayer is contingent on transparency and honesty.

• Prayer is unpredictably dynamic.

In our efforts to pray it is easy for us to be defeated right at the outset because we have been taught that everything in the universe is already set, and so things cannot be changed.   –Richard Foster

• You will never graduate from the school of prayer.

Prayer is learned through a lifetime of practice.  There are no experts. We are all students.

• Jesus prayed for you.

In Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17, Jesus prayed for his current disciples, and all of those who would come to follow him in the future.

In Luke 22:31, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that you will be strong.”

 

Summary: Just as Jesus taught his early disciples to pray, Jesus wants you to listen attentively and talk honestly to God.

 

 

Sex, Lies, and Fidelity

(outline for Wednesday January 14)

I Corinthians 6:15-20

Central idea:  Like money and power, sex presents a challenge to the disciplined life.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.  Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.                                I Corinthians 6:15-20  NIV

There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, "The two become one." Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never "become one." There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for "becoming one" with another. Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.                            I Corinthians 6:16-20  The Message

Things you need to remember about sex:

• Sex is a powerful gift from God.

• Sex is to be discussed honestly and responsibly.

• Sexual intimacy is to be shared in covenant partnership between a man and woman.

• There are many distortions to sexual intimacy.
• Lust
• Adultery
• Fornication/Promiscuity
• Pornography
• Homosexuality

• There is no sexual sin that is described as unforgivable.

Summary: The powerful temptation and allure of distorted or displaced sexual expression can cause hurt and brokenness in your life and the life of others.  To be faithful to God and to your covenant soul mate in your sexual expression, can be one of many ways you experience the abundant life.

Creation Care: Caring for God’s Great Big Planet

(outline for Sunday evening January 11)

Genesis 1:26- 28

Central Idea: As a follower of Jesus, God has commissioned you to care for God’s great big planet.

God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God's nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."

Genesis 1:26-28 The Message

Introduction:

1. Creation care means caring for all of God’s creation by stopping and preventing activities that are harmful (e.g. polluting air and water) and participating in activities that further Christ’s reconciliation of all of creation to God.

2. Creation Care is a life discipline, or a spiritual discipline with life application.

3. Creation Care is an act of obedience to scripture.

4. Creation Care is form godliness or holiness.

5. Quotes:

If I am going to be in a right relationship with God, I should treat the things he has made in the same way that he treats them.

Frances Shaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man

I find myself becoming more and more an advocate of the true ecologists where their recommendations are realistic. Many of these people have done us an essential service in helping us preserve and protect our green zones and our cities, our water and our air.

Billy Graham

Outline:

1. Cultivate and enjoy the beauty.

2. Preserve and replenish the environment.

3. Appropriate and share the resources.

4. Study and protect the inhabitants.

5. Praise and worship the creator.

The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1 NIV

Summary: As a follower of Jesus, God has charged you to adopt a style and standard of living that demonstrates good management of the earth.

Meditation: Finding Your Quiet Place

(sermon outline for Sunday January 11)

Mark 1:35-39

Central idea:  Followers of Jesus need to find a solitary place to listen for God’s voice.

Scripture focus: Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35  NIV

Outline:

1. Meditation permits us to hear God’s voice more clearly.

2. Meditation enables us to create space for God to work.

In our quiet place we create the emotional and spiritual space which allows Christ to construct a sanctuary within us.

3. Meditation prepares us for our day by providing a sense of balance.

1. An ability to be at peace with the activities of the day.
2. An ability to rest and take time to enjoy beauty.
3. An ability to pace ourselves.

4. There are a variety of focal points for meditation.

1. Meditation on scripture.
2. “Centering down”
3. Meditation on creation
4. Meditation on current events

Closing thought:  In the hustle and bustle of your routine, you will find that meditation enables you to live a more God-centered life.

Challenged by Money, Sex, and Power

(outline for Wednesday January 7)

Central idea: Money, Sex, and Power are sacred gifts from God.

Introduction:

1. Money, Sex, and Power represent 3 areas of moral dilemma.

2. The historic vows of the monastics relate to these three.

·        Vow of poverty

·        Vow of chastity

·        Vow of obedience

3. The great movements of revival and spiritual renewal were stirred by a re-commitment to the disciplined practice of these three.

4. The inversion of these three represent what the Bible calls evil:

• The demon of money is greed.
•  The demon of sex is lust.
•  The demon of power is pride.

5. The sacredness of these three represent God’s best gifts:

• The gift of wealth.
• The gift of intimacy.
• The gift of influence.

Session One:  Challenged by Money

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

 I Timothy 6:10  NIV

Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after.

I Timothy 6:10 The Message

1. Growth requires obedience.

Martin Luther wrote: “Three conversions are necessary:  The conversion of heart, mind, and purse.”

2. Pre-dominant distortions.

• “prosperity gospel”
• secularization of money
• limited stewardship concept
• myth of personal ownership
• illusion of net worth

3. Adopt disciplined practices

• Develop self-esteem based on your identity as a child of God.
• Maintain a healthy attitude about work and vocation as an expression of your giftedness and a field of ministry.
• Commit to faithfully honor the Lord with your tithes and offerings.
• Create your personal or family budget as a ministry budget.

The temptation to misappropriate money, sex, and power will challenge you at every stage of your life.  The presence of the Spirit of God and the practice of the spiritual disciplines will help guide you in honoring God with these sacred gifts.

Practicing the Presence of God

(outline for Sunday evening January 4)

Psalm 139: 7-12

Central idea: There is no place you can be where God is not present and attentive.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:7-12 NIV

Introduction:
1. Why we need a new understanding of the presence of God:

§ To keep Christians from living secular lives.

§ To avoid compartmentalizing Christianity.

§ To enable us to perceive God’s presence cognitively and emotively.

2. What do we mean by the presence of God?

• God’s personal awareness of us…our joy and our pain, our burdens and our blessings.
• God’s redemptive activity in our lives.
• God’s actions through us as the body of Christ.

“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." --Brother Lawrence

Outline:

1. Affirm God’s presence in all places at all times.

2. Acknowledge God’s interaction in all things.

3. Enjoy God’s presence at all times.

4. Draw strength from God’s presence in all circumstances.

5. Serve with God’s purpose as your ultimate objective.

The most excellent method of going to God is that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing people but purely for the love of God. –Brother Lawrence

Summary: You have the opportunity to live with the assurance and the companionship of God’s presence in all seasons.

For more on Practicing the Presence or on Brother Lawrence, check out the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_the_Presence_of_God

Celebrating the Spiritual Disciplines

(The following is the outline of the sermon from Sunday January 4.)

Central idea: The spiritual disciplines strengthen your relationship with God.

Scripture focus: And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17 NIV

The Spiritual Disciplines that we will consider during the next several weeks are…

Meditation                  Simplicity                   Confession

Prayer                         Stewardship              Worship

Fasting                       Submission                Guidance

Study                          Service                       Celebration

 

• Followers of Jesus are encouraged to grow in their faith.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. II Peter 3:18 NIV

• Spiritual disciplines are those practices that help us stay in tune with God and God’s purposes for your life.

• Spiritual disciplines sharpen our spiritual gifts so that we can bear spiritual fruit.

Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant… There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

I Corinthians 12:1,4-6 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

• Each spiritual discipline complements the other disciplines.

No matter whether you are a veteran Christian or a new believer, you can grow deeper in your faith and stronger in your capacity to serve.