If a past experience is having a controlling, or undo influence in our lives–we need to get over it!  It might be something happy, and now we’re constantly trying to live up to it.  It could be something horrible, and now we’re constantly trying to live it down.

Even if you could change it, you wonder if you would!  After all, to some extent it has defined you.  Is wanting to change it a denial of yourself?  If you “get over it,” does the event get minimized?

Any event can be redeemed when it is integrated into God’s story for you. You’re over it when you have, by God’s grace, punched a hole in the clouds and hope is streaming in.  Those clouds may return, but you have gotten a glimpse and you know how to clear the skies again.   You’re over it when you can sing praise to God without reservation.  You’re over it when you can tell your story in a way that honors the revealed truth about God’s impeccable character.  You’re over it when you’re living with freedom and hope!

Click on the links below for sermon audio

Over It! OverIt1

Over It! 2  OverIt2

Commentator Frederick Godet described the Epistle to the Romans as “the cathedral of the Christian faith.”

That imagery has stuck with me as I have been meditating on the message of Romans.  It is truly a cathedral.  Everywhere you look your eye is met with intricacy, beauty and majesty.

But I’ve imagined a particular cathedral, one that is also a refuge.  Romans describes a real and present storm of God’s wrath.  It describes a way of escape–justification by faith.  And it describes a life of security from God’s temporal wrath within the gospel cathedral.

I invite you to join us in this exposition of Romans with a sense of urgency, as we Run In!:  from under the wrath of God to shelter in the Cathedral of His Grace.

Theme

Run In!  (1:16-17)  1RomRunIn

God’s Righteous Storm

Maelstrom!  the Storm that is God’s Wrath (1:18)  2RomMaelstrom

The Great Put Down:  2 Causes of God’s Wrath (1:18-23)  3RomPutDown

The Storm Breaks:  3 Effects of God’s Wrath  (1:28-32)  4RomSentence

What Won’t Save You When God Gets Angry

The Holier Than Thou Experiment (2:1-16)  5RomHolierExp

Egg Storage Tips (2:17-29)  6RomEggStor

(parenthesis answering Jewish objections 3:1-18)

Which Monster Are You?  (3:9-20)  7RomMonster

The Doorway to Shelter:  Imputed Righteousness

The Great Escape (3:21-26)  8RomEscape

The Implications of Faith (3:27-4:17)  9RomImplications

Heaven’s Impossible Odds (4:18-25)  10RomImpossibleOdds

Three Cheers!  (5:1-11)  11Rom3Cheers

The Many and the One (5:12-21)  12RomManyOne

From Mis to Triophe (6:1-14)  13RomTriomph

What’s the Legal Limit?  (6:15-23)  14RomLimit

Escape from Hotel California (7:1-12)  15RomHotelCA

Ordinary or Normal? (7:13-25)  16RomOridnary

Jailbird to Solid Citizen (8:1-7)  17RomJailbird

Kill or Be Killed (8:8-17)  18RomKillBeKilled

Agony of Victory (8:18-27) 20RomAgony

Break the Pity Habit (8:28-30) message not recorded

Fight Fear with Faith (8:31-39) 22RomFightFear

Unfathomable His Ways (9) 23RomUnfathomable

Grace Ethic (9:30-10:4) 24RomGraceEthic

Saved Like That (10:5-13) 25RomSavedLikeThat

The Missing Link (10:14-21) 26RomMissingLink

No Take Backs! (11) 27NoTakeBacks

I Do (12:1-2)

Pecking Order Problems (12:3-8) 29PeckingOrder

Besties and Beasties (12:9-21) 30BestiesBeasties

With Liberty, Justice, and Subjection for All (13:1-7) 31LibertySubjection

Deep in Debt (13:8-10) 32DeepDebt

Up and Dressed (13:11-14) 33UpandDressed

Trick or Treat 34TrickTreat

Liberty’s Leash

Extra-Strength Christians 36XStrengthXstian

Doubt Your Hopelessness 37DoubtHopeless

Bragging Rights 38BraggingRights

Brace Yourself 39BraceYourself

The story of Moses found in Exodus is great reading just for the story line.  Think of Moses as the original Rocky:  the rise from obscurity to larger-than-life hero with shoulders wide enough to carry the burdens and aspirations of his people.

But Moses has inspired much more than early morning runs in gray hooded sweatshirts.  The life of Moses has been read as national hero and continues to be claimed as the prototype for social or personal reform.  Moses fits into all of those discussions, BUT ONLY AFTER we take at face value what God has revealed about his place in the grand story of God’s redemption.

These are our goals for the Rescue series:

• Celebrate Moses’ fixed place in redemptive history
• Observe God’s heart for freeing people from the slavery of sin by reading Moses through the cross.
• Identify with the bondage of sin and the joy of liberty
• Aspire to be a liberator
• Learn God’s path to freedom

Click the links below for sermon audio:

Promise:  the Backdrop of Bondage 08-08-10

Wakin’ Up in Chains 08-15-10

Bad to the Bone Rescue3

The SHAPE of a Liberator Rescue4

The Critical Choice Rescue5

Who Am I? Rescue6

Knock Your Socks Off Deliverance Rescue7

Remember the Alamo Rescue8

Experience the Best Teacher? Rescue9

Missions:  Rescue on a Global Scale Rescue10

en-cour-age-ment \in-’ker-ij-ment\  n 1: something that almost everybody wants but few know how to give

It’s more than a sympathy card. What the Bible envisions for  church communities is an atmosphere that:

• urges
• admonishes
• exhorts
• cheers
• inspires
• charges
• and yes, comforts.

Encouragement is a multi-dimensional ministry to keep us all moving forward “so that (we) would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls (us) into His own kingdom and glory.”

Have you stopped moving?  How did you get stuck?  Was it grief?  Confusion?  Indecision?  Loneliness?  Rebellion?

Encouragement is just the nudge you need to get out of your stuck-ness!

Listen in by clicking the links below:

Just the Nudge You Need  Encourage1

Who Needs a Nudge?  Encourage2

His Very Name was Nudge  Encourage3

Where to Find Comfort  Encourage4

The Needy Never Nudge  Encourage5

You Don’t Say!  Encourage6

16,000 of What Kinda Words? Encourage7

From the PBS special “The Blues”:
On a lonely night in 1903, W.C. Handy, the African American leader of a dance orchestra, got stuck waiting for a train in the hamlet of Tutwiler, Mississippi. With hours to kill and nowhere else to go, Handy fell asleep on a hard wooden bench at the empty depot. When he awoke, a ragged black man was sitting next to him, singing about “goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog” and sliding a knife against the strings of a guitar. The musician repeated the line three times and answered with his instrument.

Intrigued, Handy asked what the line meant. It turned out that the tracks of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, which locals called the Yellow Dog, crossed the tracks of the Southern Railroad in the town of Moorehead, where the musician was headed, and he’d put it into a song.

It was, Handy later said, “the weirdest music I had ever heard.”

Readers of the Bible might have a similar experience when they come across Ecclesiastes. Solomon definitely sounds a blue note, but what’s the effect?

I believe as we chase down the the themes of futility with Solomon’s guidance, we’ll also chase away the illusions that alienate us from God.

Life is hard to handle and impossible to hold. Let’s let the book of Ecclesiastes counteract the youthful folly that there’s meaning in life, AND maturity’s cynicism that says because there’s no inherent meaning, there can be no joy!

Chasin’ the Blues (1:1-11) Eccl1.1-11

LIfe’s Grand Buffet (1:12-2:26) Eccl1.12-2.26

Solomon’s Billboard #1 (3:1-15) Eccl3.1-15

Bite Your Tongue (3:16-5:7) Eccl3.16-5.7

Follow the Money (5:8-20 Eccl5.8-20

If You Know What’s Good For You (6:1-7:14) Eccl6-7.14

What You’ve Got Comin’ (7:15-29) Eccl7.15-29

“Da Man” Bringin’ You Down? (8:1-17) Eccl8

If I’d Only Known (9) Eccl9

What a Fool Believes, He Sees (10) Eccl10

Intrepid? or Intimidated? (11:1-6) Eccl11.1-6

Joie De Vivre (11:7-12:7) Eccl11.7-12.7

Who are these blessings for? Originally proclaimed by King Jesus to the Jewish heirs of kingdom promises, these transcendent virtues are directly applicable to believers in this church age who will, because of the cross, also participate in kingdom blessings.  They represent what kingdom citizens look like now, while we continue to wait for the millennial age.

Is the blessing now or in the future? These people are to be considered blessed now for having God’s seal of approval which will ultimately be rewarded.

I’m calling this series:  “Settling on Plan Be” where “Be” stands for the beatitudes.  Plan “A” is where we are strong, and successful, and satisfied in ordinary terms.  It’s the most natural thing in the world.  But it is strangely out of order for a kingdom that’s not of this world.  And so as we sit at Jesus’ feet and listen, I hope we will forget “Plan A” and settle on “Plan Be.”  God’s “Plan Be” is a compelling vision for Christ’s character being formed in you.  It’s you at your best–the glory of Christ shining through the uniqueness of you.

“Settling on Plan Be” planbeintro

“Blessed Desperation” planbepoor

“When God says, ‘Good Grief!’”  planbemourn

“Giant Strength, Gentle Touch”  planbemeek

“Happy are the Hungry” planbehungry

“Merciful Heavens!” PlanBeMerciful

“No Posers” planbepure

“The No Bull Peace Prize” PlanBePeacemaker

“When Outcast is Cool” PlanBePersecuted

“Will I Ever Be Good Enough?” PlanBeGoodEnoughmp3