Congratulations to the First Baptist Graduating Class of 2007:
Carly A.
Megan F.
Andy R.
I pray that God blesses you in all that you are going to do and accomplish. Allow him to lead you into the life he has for you! Amen!
Ok, so plumbing round 3… I finally, after living here for over 2 years, have decent water pressure. The North Park Plumbing guys put in a pump next to my water meter to raise my water pressure and flow rate to something reasonable.
It’s so nice actually being able to use water like I’m used to.
Thanks to all the people who helped out through the goofiness that this caused, with no water last week and whatnot.
Woo hoo - i have more furniture! And a little more coming!
So… tonight Rob and Becky gave me a couch & loveseat since they’re moving…
And Andy R. helped me carry the loveseat all the way down the street (3 blocks, approx.) to my house and up into my bedroom.
We didn’t try to move the couch yet. We were too tired out and we nearly dropped it as it was.
My arms are still shakey.
But praise God for cool people who give me decent furniture!
Yesterday was Pentecost. Because of the movement of Easter and the fixity of Christmas, the season after Pentecost (like the season after Epiphany) has some scheduled flexibility built in.
That makes this week Pentecost Proper 3, with next Sunday being Trinity Sunday.
June 3 - 9, 2007 is Proper 4, and
June 10, 2007 is labelled the Second Sunday after Pentecost (2 Pentecost) Proper 5.
The reason for the complication is that Easter may fall as early as 22 March and as late as 25 April in any given year. The lectionary cycles of readings must account for this flexibility. Therefore, Pentecost may fall as early as 10 May and as late as 13 June.
To add even more complexity, Advent is always fixed as the four Sunday mornings prior to Christmas Eve. Thus, because the day upon which 25 December falls varies through the week, Advent may start as early as 27 November and as late as 3 December. Advent is the next season after Pentecost.
Therefore, this year:
10 June 2007: 2 Pentecost Proper 5
17 June 2007: 3 Pentecost Proper 6
24 June 2007: 4 Pentecost Proper 7
and so on, through
25 November 2007: Christ The King (Reign of Christ) 26 Pentecost Proper 29.
Clear as mud?
Everything You Ever Wanted - Hawk Nelson
I walk the line
Leave it all behind
I’ve been waiting forever
Let’s go back in time
When I could read your mind
Still I’ve been waitin’
It took a season’s going by
To know it’s not my fault
I try to be perfect,
Try to be honest,
Try to be everything that you ever wanted.
I try to be stronger,
Try to be smarter,
Try to be everything but you…
It’s been so long
Since you’ve been home
I used to wait up forever.
Used to say a prayer
Wishing you were there.
And I’m still waiting…
You told me once
You’d show up,
But I fell for that before
I fell to pieces
Then I woke up to no one
Just a picture of Jesus
And a house left in pieces
And it took a season’s going by
To know it’s not my fault.
I try to be perfect,
Try to be honest,
Try to be everything that you ever wanted.
I try to be stronger,
Try to be smarter,
Try to be everything but you…
I want you
I need you
I want to believe you
I want you
I need you
I want to believe you
I tried be perfect
Tried to be honest
Tried to be everything but you…
I try to be perfect,
Try to be honest,
Try to be everything that you ever wanted.
I try to be stronger,
Try to be smarter,
Try to be everything but you…
I try to be perfect,
Try to be honest,
Try to be everything that you ever wanted.
I try to be stronger,
Try to be smarter,
Try to be everything but you…
As we’ve already mentioned, today is the Day of Pentecost, the 50th day after Easter. On this day we commemorate the Holy Spirit’s coming upon the disciples gathered in the upper room, which brought the life of God’s Kingdom to bear in the lives of ordinary people after Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.
For many Christians, Pentecost is the third most significant holiday on the Christian calendar, after Easter and Christmas. Other Christians don’t quite see the point of commemorating Pentecost. Some even cringe that it might set aside celebration of other holidays that arrive on or around the same calendar date.
Pentecost has great significance for the People of God known as the church. Once again, we’re talking about the church as the people, not as any building the people happen to gather in. Without Pentecost, the Holy Spirit would not be at work in the church. In that case, the church would be just another civic or philanthropic organization dedicated to a certain moral code with certain traditions, rituals and politics. Without the Holy Spirit, the church would have no more ability to change the world or influence society than other organizations like Kiwanis, the Elks or the local Bar association. (Yes, lawyers, not taverns!)
In other words, without the Holy Spirit, the church is reduced to a members-only club, like the one positioned between Golf drive and Fairway just north of here, and has probably comparable long-term significance. Without the Holy Spirit, the church upholds its moral code through judgmentalism, anger, and political maneuvering, all the while trying to attract members to its cause.
However, with the Holy Spirit, the landscape is potentially very different. With the Holy Spirit, which came upon the disciples at Pentecost, the church becomes an living organism, infused with the life of God himself. It becomes a hybrid of human organization and God’s actions in the world. Moreover, it lives under the otherwise absurd notion that the life of God himself is available to ordinary human beings, because God himself lives in them. This idea applies both to the transformed character of the fruit of the Spirit (love joy peace patience kindness faithfulness gentleness and self-control), as well as to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit (the miraculous stuff).
With this in mind, Pentecost allows the church to make the audacious claim that it is not an organization like any other - governmental, family, educational, business or civic organization. Instead, the church can claim that the life, power, and lifestyle of heaven itself is at work among us and within our everyday lives. Beyond that, it can claim that no other organization can do this. The life of Jesus himself - with all that means - is at work in God’s people, the church.
Therefore we hear from the Apostle Paul in Romans 8, speaking to the disciples: You are not of the flesh (that is, of the everyday world as we know it); you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (ouch) But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (In other words, though through natural, normal processes that we might exert in family, work, school or government, we are powerless to change our circumstances, the Spirit of God working in us makes us alive to a whole new reality that can change everything.)
He continues: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” In other words, we get new life AND renewal of the original life - we don’t just chuck the old life. “Therefore,” he says, “we are debtors not to the original life, to live according to its patterns” (once again, the normal, problematic patterns of everyday life). As he says, “For if you live according to those patterns you will die; (no ifs, ands or buts here - these patterns bring death and destruction, though usually not immediately or as direct consequence) but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, then you will live. (In other words, declaring an end to the old patterns of life and inviting God to direct you into new patterns of life.) And now we arrive at the passage you have in front of you:
“As many as are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” In other words, when we put God in charge of our lives, we become his children. There is significance to this, which we’re getting to. Paul argues here that originally we are enslaved to patterns of this world, and by the Spirit we are freed - not to be slaves again, who live in fear, but to be sons, adopted into God’s family.
But some of us might say, “I’m not enslaved to anything. I’m my own person, I do my own things.” Others of us say, “well, yes, I’m pretty much stuck in (fill in the blank).” How many times do we hear someone blaming a situation on either their genetics or their environment of family and friends? While for normal humanity this is true -that we are bound to our heredity and childhood trauma - the Spirit frees us from those things and invites us into new life that moves beyond those things. Let me say that again. While normally humans are bound by their genetics and the good, bad and the ugly of their home lives as children, the Spirit transcends that and can break that and bring new life.
This is why we are made children of God; no one can have a childhood traumatic experience with God as their father. Yes, somewhat tongue in cheek, but true, nonetheless.
Being children of God we must therefore submit to God’s authority and discipline - which unlike our experience, is always appropriate. But this passage doesn’t really speak to that issue; it assumes it. Instead, it speaks to the incredible life of God that is powerful to act in our lives. When we say that God is, in the term Paul uses here, our “Dad,” when we worship and say “our father who is in heaven,” Paul says that the Spirit confirms in us that we are God’s kids.
Now here’s the significant thing Paul wants us to hear: if we are God’s children, then like Jesus, the only Son of God, we receive the inheritance God gives Jesus. Jesus is the natural son of God; we are adopted children of God. In fact, in one place in this passage Paul calls both men and women “sons of God” because he wants to emphasize that we are all eligible for inheritance, something women weren’t eligible for long ago.
What is this inheritance? It is what we call the Kingdom of God. We’ve talked about this Kingdom thing before. For now, think of the life and the lifestyle of God forever, along with leading, governing, or administering a portion of God’s world. Therefore, the power of God to experience his transformation is what we get just as his children - we inherit it, we don’t have to work for it -
Provided, he says, we are willing to go through that process, painful though it is, of putting off the old self and putting on the new, sharing in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the process we call discipleship, and it will hurt as we set aside old patterns of life.
So for today, without Penetecost, we would be just another civic organization, dedicated to some cause that everyone will forget about eventually and whose significance in the long run will be minimal. But because of Pentecost, we can participate in the very life of God and receive his transforming power to be and to do all that God has for us. We receive this through choosing to follow Jesus and put God in charge of our lives, willingly going through a potentially painful process of deep life change we call discipleship.
[Invitation]
I’m working through the balance of the ministry “hats” I wear this week - with a number of different relationships. Sometimes it feels like being a pastor actually makes it harder to be a Christian and do ministry, than to not be a pastor. Add to that the friendships and other kinds of relationships (including, eventually, hopefully, dating/marriage/family), and it gets even more complicated.
Finding the balance in how I relate to people is one of the most complicated parts of this ministry. The notion of wearing different “hats” is somewhat hard because I see my life as a unified whole, much more than others do. Many others see my life as having various compartments - professional, personal, family, etc. For me, they all flow together to some extent.
This is based, for me, on the fact that the call of God is the call of God no matter the profession. To some extent, I’m in a pastoral position because it best reflects my desire to draw people into the Life of the Kingdom through discipleship to Jesus Christ. But another profession that would do better with that would be fine with me. (not that i’m going anywhere anytime soon - that’s not on the table right now!) If the position smothers the call, though, how do we respond? Not to say that mine is. But there are some places where the boundaries pinch a bit.
The most difficult part, I think, is trying to “relax and be yourself” when you constantly have to analyze whether you’re getting played or to what extent you have to watch your back. I’m praying for guidance through this complex dance we call ministry. In the end, we must always seek what God is up to and join him in whatever that is, whatever that looks like.
Grace and peace to all.
Tonight one of our band members had to work. And another one of our band members had to fuel up his limo that he owns for a side-business. So we did a funny prank with it - we took the limo through the Drive-through at dunkin donuts where the guy was working.
Made his night, let me tell you!
Is that another Ordinary Attempt?
Jim Henderson of Off the Map talks about “Ordinary Attempts” at evangelism. Here was one of mine from today.
This afternoon my neighbor disposed of several (formerly) white plastic deck chairs. The neighbors on the far side of him are several guys in their late teens/early 20s. They asked me if they could have the chairs. I said yes, of course, they were being thrown away.
They started hosing them off. In a moment of inspiration, I went over and handed them a bottle of all-purpose cleaner. As we stood there and chatted, I had another idea: we were going to do some grilling at my house and I could invite them because we had enough food.
So we talked and got to know each other. There ended up being 6 of them and three of us. It was relaxed, and they found out what I do for a living. But they weren’t put off by that. It was good. There will be more to come with these guys.
Ok so today went totally nuts on me.
But I had a lot of “alone time” with God.
Waiting for the city to come turn my water back on after a plumbing repair, that is.
I still have no water.
More later when I am less, well, angry.
Sometimes life needs a reset switch.
I’ve been out of balance since last week’s all-nighter on the square. My schedule has been whacked out; there has been upheaval in several areas of life. Today I tried to do a re-set by praying through some of the stuff that is going on. And I still trod upon toes in several places today, to the point of getting a wake-up call note from someone.
So we’ll try the re-set again tomorrow.
I preached the “prepare yourself” sermon yesterday; it’s applying to me. The “take time to get ready for what God is up to” sermon is preaching my life today.
Well, it’s necessary. It’s all good. But people are getting hurt in the process. And I want to do something about that. Gotta go pray some more, methinks.
This is the Sunday of Ascension, celebrating the event that passed by us on Thursday: that 40 days after Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven to return just as the disciples saw him leave. Acts 1:1 - 11 tells that story. People often ask why Jesus had to ascend. Perhaps we’ll answer that, just a little bit today.
The disciples were clueless, sometimes. Well, maybe a lot of the time. It makes me feel better about myself to see that, you know? Even after the cross and the resurrection, the disciples are still asking questions that show they don’t understand what Jesus is all about.
“Lord, when are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
This question might be obscure to us, but to them, it was basically “when are you going to kick out the Roman army and sit down on David’s throne yourself, and bring us back to the glory days of the kings?”
Jesus might have been frustrated with this question, but he doesn’t really show it. I mean, he’s just spent however long he’s been with them trying to teach them about a new reality - the Kingdom of God - that trumps the old kingdom. They’ve experienced this Kingdom of God through miracles. And to be honest, the old kingdom utterly failed. Failed. Fell to Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. (And a couple in between, too!)
No, Jesus isn’t getting ready to kick out the Romans, and no, he isn’t going to make the disciples his generals in his army. Now, Jesus could have set himself up for this, telling the disciples before his death that they would sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. But right now, that’s beside the point.
Instead, like he has done from the very beginning, Jesus offers a new reality to the disciples, one that goes far, far beyond Israeli nationalism. The disciples’ mindset would have produced a situation much like we have now - an Israeli state formed in 1948 that has warred and skirmished ever since to maintain its existence.
By contrast, Jesus’ Kingdom reality isn’t a collecting, national identity, but an international sending out. “The Father has it under control and will let you know what you need to know when you need to know it,” Jesus says. This new reality is the Resurrection to which the disciples are witnesses - the defining act of the power of this Kingdom of God. If Jesus hadn’t ascended, the disciples would probably have missed the impact of the reality of this New Heavens and New Earth - this Kingdom - and wasted their time banging their heads against the notion of starting a new Jewish empire.
We, too, are witnesses to this great Resurrection through the power of God working among us. When we see lives transformed - emotionally, physically, spiritually - we witness this Resurrection power. When we see the miraculous, we witness the Resurrection. When we experience the renewing presence of God in prayer, in worship, in communion, in baptism - we witness the Resurrection. When we are able to bring the Great Story of God to bear in our ordinary lives, and the lives of others around us, we are witnesses to the Resurrection.
So when Jesus tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the power to come upon them - the power of the Holy Spirit; when he tells them that when the Holy Spirit has come upon them they will receive power and be witnesses, how do we look at that?
Basically, Jesus tells the disciples that they can’t give what they don’t have. They can’t do the acts of power that Jesus did until they receive the Spirit that Jesus did. They will need more power to do what they are called to do than what they already have.
We know that we have a challenge in front of us as First Baptist Church: to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to the Mahoning Valley and beyond. We have a challenge to reach out into a largely unchurched community - by some estimates, only 6 - 10 % of people in the Warren area are in church on Sunday morning. The national average is at least 3 - 5 times that. We truly are in a position to impact our community dramatically - but only if we receive the power of God to do so.
Folks, I’m convinced that God’s up to something. We’d not be seeing the kinds of miraculous stuff we’ve seen - like healings and spontaneous worship sessions on the courthouse square during the Relay for Life - if God weren’t up to something bigger than we’ve ever experienced before. Seriously! Do you see it?
Next week we will celebrate the feast of Pentecost - that day when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples as tongues of fire. They proclaimed the message of Jesus’ resurrection to all who would listen, miraculously in languages the people understood. This was the power Jesus is talking about. I would encourage all of us here to take the next seven days to prepare ourselves to receive a greater measure of the Holy Spirit in our lives. As disciples of Jesus ourselves, we have the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t mean we get more, as if we were lacking. In this case, we are inviting God to do more with us than he has done in the past by releasing him into parts of our lives where we haven’t let him go before. As we do so, I believe we will see miracles in our lives in greater measure than we have ever before experienced. Prepare for Pentecost. Prepare to receive even more from God in the area of Spiritual Gifts and character development (known as the Fruit of the Spirit) than you have received previously. Because remember, God likes to show up and he likes to show off. Are you ready?
I was at the Indians - Reds game tonight in Cleveland at the Jake. I enjoyed the first half of the game and then spent the second half standing in line waiting for my free complementary tickets for something I’d won.
Thank goodness there were no runs scored from the bottom of the 6th on…
You’d think they’d've opened another ticket window or something.
But i’m going back Monday night. Woo hoo!
Hic est dies magnus, dies Ascensionis. Hic est dies ubi Iesus Christus ascendit in caelum. Nunc homo caelestis, filius dei hominisque, sedet in solio suo ad dextram Patri. Omnia terra gaudeat! Dies prolixus propter tam res ut caro humana vivat coram Deo. Gloria in altissimus Deo!
Hic nuntius ad urbem nostram hodie: Ascendit Christus, Alleuia!
+ + +
And now the translation:
This is the great day, the Day of Ascension. This is the day when Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven. Now the Heavenly Man, the Son of God and Son of Man is seated on his throne at the Father’s right hand. Let all the earth rejoice! This is a fortunate day, because [on this day] so great an event as human flesh living in the presence of God [has occurred]. Glory to God in the heighest!
This is the message to our city today: Christ is ascended, Alleluia!
