Month: May 2018

Thanksgiving is next Thursday, so today’s verse includes thanks as the theme.

Philippians 4:6-7 says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We previously have discussed the idea that we need to “pray like we mean it” or God will ignore what we ask for.  Along the same lines, today’s passage says we need to present our requests to God with thanksgiving.

Pause here for just a minute and picture what true thankfulness looks like.  Picture the joy in the eyes of the thanks-giver.  Genuine gratefulness is a very attractive thing.  Also picture the receiver of the thanks – softened heart, warm smile, etc.  It makes it a lot easier for us to keep giving if our gifts are received with Thanksgiving.

So when Paul encourages the church at Philippi to pray with Thanksgiving, he is really instructing them on how God wants them to pray and how they are most likely to have their prayers answered.

So as you talk to God this week before Thanksgiving, Pray like you mean it AND Be Thankful like you mean it!

• Have you ever given a gift that wasn’t received with thankfulness? If so, how likely were you to be generous to that person or group in the future?
• Does God NEED our thanks? If not, why would Paul tell us it is important to God?
• What is something you need to express thanks for that you have not yet?
• Do you think God thinks it is too petty for us to express thanks for simple things like food, shelter, and clean water?

Luke 6:27-29, “Love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also”.

Matthew 5- (Sermon on the Mount) Love for Enemies: ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor^[i] and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The topic for this week was to start a series on “Lent” which started yesterday but in light of the most recent “mass shooting” we would like to have one more discussion of “Love your Enemies”.  Last week we were only able to get to the first 2 of the following questions, we have added a few additional questions.

Questions:

• What is your faith costing you?
• How are you willing to suffer for Jesus Christ? (we are not in a war-torn area or an area that Christians are physically persecuted, so suffering might mean something different in 2018 USA).  How does your answer affect the way you handle insults or disapproval?
• Why is responding in love and not retaliation the most powerful form of witness for Christ?
• Do you find it hard in today’s political climate/Social climate to love others or Groups of people that you don’t agree with?
• In light of the shooting at the Florida school, it is very easy for us to pray for the families of the victims but what about praying for the shooter?  Is that hard for you to do?
• If you were to say a prayer for the Florida school shooter what would you pray for?
• We touched on this over the last couple of weeks but why do you think Jesus so heavily emphasized praying for those it is tough to pray for?

Our verse today is inspired by the recent snow & ice that resulted in salt being spread on the roads.  It reminds us of the many uses of salt, as long as it maintains its “saltiness”.

Matthew 5:13-18 says “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

One of the primary uses of salt in Jesus’ day was to preserve food.  Salt kills harmful bacteria in food by starving it of moisture.  In doing so, it effectively helps the food stay together instead of breaking down.  Similarly, when we follow Jesus’ example, any number of things are more likely to be preserved and stay together – our family, our community, our body, and our mind.

Then Jesus gives us a graphic example of what happens when we lose our “saltiness” – we get thrown out and trampled underfoot because we no longer good for anything.  Ouch!  It is bad enough to be thrown out but then to be trampled on sounds particularly bad.

Salt also adds flavor to food and makes it more appealing.  In the same way, Jesus followers can add flavor to our world but only once we allow Him to enter our lives and help us become “salty”.

Questions:

1)      If Christians are the salt of the earth, how do they get their saltiness?

2)     How does a “salty” Christian affect the world in comparison to someone who has lost their saltiness?

3)     What are the biggest challenges in your life that keep you from becoming saltier?

4)     What are one or two things you can do right away to start enhancing your own saltiness and the saltiness of your family?

Our passage today is from Isaiah 43:18-19 which says,

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

There are two parts of this passage — 1) don’t dwell on the past and 2) God calling us to a new thing that he has in store for us.

Forgetting about the past is not easy and the things we tend to dwell on are failures and shortcomings.  Because God knows this about us, He speaks through Isaiah and tells us NOT to dwell on these things.

Then He says that He is doing a new thing and He is calling us to that.  In all areas of our lives there is room for new things but of course to do something new you have to stop doing something old.  It is like buying a new room full of furniture and trying to move it in without moving the old furniture out — you have to move the old stuff out first or you are going to have a mess.

The real “turbo charge” for anything new is to pray about it.  Enlisting God’s guidance will take you farther down the path and will help you stay on the right path.  It could be as simple as saying; “God, I’m really excited about (your new thing) and about doing it to become a better husband and better father, all for Your glory.  As I work in this direction, please help me keep focused and open my eyes to other things the YOU believe I need to be working on.”

Blessings to all as we develop in our community of faith and encourage each other to be the best men we can be in 2018 and beyond!

Questions:

1) What are some of the “old” things you would like to move out of your life to make room for the new in 2018?

2) What are some new things you would like to move in?

3) Why can’t we just read and listen to a bunch of self-help material instead of enlisting God’s guidance in this process?

4) Share a story about something in the past that seemed bad at the time but that ultimately God turned into a blessing in your life.

Dr. Bill’s sermon last week was titled “Be the One”.  The scripture was from 2 Timothy 1:3-12 where we hear Paul (the author) encouraging Timothy to remain strong and faithful even though he is being challenged by the suffering and public shame associated with being a Christian at that time.

Timothy was a follower, partner, and disciple of Paul in his efforts to spread the gospel.  They traveled extensively together and Timothy is credited with co-Authoring (with Paul) six books of the New Testament.  Paul even wrote to the Philippians about Timothy and said “I have no one like him” meaning he was a critical member of the early Christian Church.  Timothy was in many respects Paul’s right-hand man.

This passage indicates that Timothy suffered under a heavy burden.  While theological traditions might insist that suffering leads to glory, when you are actually experiencing suffering it can be very challenging – even for the strongest among us.  Because of his Christian beliefs, Timothy lived as a second class citizen, probably lived a life of poverty, and probably feared for his physical well-being daily.

As a result, Timothy questioned his beliefs and gave serious thought to abandoning his role as a Christian leader.  Paul wrote this letter to encourage him to stick with it.  And what better way to communicate this idea than to use the examples of his grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice, who were both strong in the Christian faith.

A central theme of Paul’s message to Timothy was that his mother and grandmother were faithful, Paul was faithful, God is faithful, so Timothy must in turn be faithful.  Paul’s effort was ultimately successful and Timothy continued his life-long work of preaching the gospel and bringing others to Christ.

Without the strong influence of his mother and grandmother, Timothy may have abandoned his faith and his good works.  In the same way, each of us have been influenced by faithful people and we in turn may have been an important influence on others.  Here are a few questions to further explore the idea of the importance of spiritual influences:

Who are the spiritual giants of your faith? Who has mentored and guided you? Who has set the example?

Who looks up to you in the faith? To whom are you a spiritual giant?

Have you ever been let down by a leader in the faith or a spiritual mentor? What was your reaction?

How is faith passed from one generation to the next?

Is it easier to pass faith down within a family or to spread it anew outside the family?

Is your worry list or prayer list longer? I heard this question from a preacher recently and was immediately convicted because my worry list is definitely longer. The preacher did go on to say that it is impossible to eliminate worry completely which made me feel a little better.

His overall message was that when we trust God our worry is dramatically reduced which brings us to our verse for the day which is from Philippians 4:6:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

The message from Philippians sounds so simple — instead of worrying just pray to God. But our human nature drives us to seek immediate results, so we frequently start somewhere other than God since we know that He often wants us to be patient.

Some of us turn to self-help books, others talk to friends or experts, and some turn to substances that will make us “forget” about the problem, at least for a little while. If we turn to these or other worldly outlets to solve our problems, we are saying to God that we don’t trust Him. Or maybe in some cases we’re saying that we trust Him but we need “same day delivery” instead of waiting for God to deliver the answers in His time. We are looking for the equivalent to the Amazon drone dropping off our package a couple of hours after we click “buy”.

And then there is God, sitting there shaking his head at how stubborn and impatient we are. Even so, He is always right there waiting when we wise up and seek Him first.

So if the answer is so simple, why do we make it so complicated? Here are a few questions for discussion.

Do you agree that it is impossible to eliminate worry and anxiety?

Is your prayer list or worry list longer?

As you get older, do you believe it is easier to trust God?

How can we encourage our family members and others around us to be more trusting in God?