When I am afraid...

www.MarysvilleNaz.org

Fear is a funny thing.   On the one hand it is a gift from God.  If ancient people had not been afraid of lions and tigers and bears (Oh my!) non of us would be around today.  Fear can be very, very healthy for us.  It pumps all kinds of things into our blood that makes us stronger, faster, more alert and in general better able to protect ourselves and the ones we love.  Like I said, it is a gift from God.  

Unfortunately, like all gifts from God we have twisted and distorted the good fear God gave us into something that is destructive and painful.  In fact we have become very creative in twisting good fear into unhealthy fear.  Some just deny it.  To hear them talk they are never afraid.  Of course this is a lie.  The fear then morphs and comes out as anger or depression or physical pain or any number of negative behaviors and emotions.  

Others go to the opposite side and the fear switch is turned on all the time.  They are constantly afraid even when there is nothing to be afraid of. 

Still others allow fear to become their master.  Everything they do is controlled by the need to avoid situations in which they will be afraid.  Can't go here or do that because I'm afraid.  I'm pretty familiar with this kind of situational fear.  Let me just confess, I have a strong fear of heights. 

During vacation this year I was with some really great, long time friends and let my guard down.  Somehow they talked me into going to the top of one of the mountains in Colorado on... A SKI LIFT!  (I think they must have drugged me) To make matters worse they allowed me to squirm in fear for a good part of the trip without the safety bar down!   I'm pretty sure I left fingerprints permanently embedded in the steel piping of the lift chair!  

While dangling in space terrified for my life two thoughts kept going through my mind... First, I'm going to get even for this!  ... We'll leave that alone for now.  The second thought was a verse from Psalms 56.  "When I am afraid, I will trust in God"  It is downright amazing how many times you can repeat a verse in your head when you are pretty sure you're going to die.  

Now that the fear has subsided I've been thinking about that verse a lot.  Sooner or later that verse applies to all of us.  When I am afraid.   What are you afraid of?  For many it is something silly like heights.  For some it is much bigger than an irrational phobia. Maybe it really is something that is life altering for you or someone you love.  When I am afraid, I will trust in God.  
Notice that trusting God and being afraid exist together!  One does not expel the other.   Trusting God isn't what we do to get rid of the fear it is what we do while we are being scared out of our skulls!   

Turns out that God does not scream at us, DON'T BE AFRAID!  Personally I've never found that helpful.  Instead His quiet voice simply says, trust me... trust me... trust me...  That helps,  because at the end of the day, I trust God.    

When I am afraid, I will trust in God.  Psalms 56:3

Our Mission to be Jesus to the world

www.MarysvilleNaz.org

Mission is a word that get's tossed around a lot.  Does your company have a mission statement?  Do you have a personal mission statement?  Is your church missional?  

Inside the church there is a whole other use of the word that talks about missionaries (As if they are the only people fulfilling the mission of Jesus), mission programs and mission trips.  It all gets bundled up into some  variation of the word mission.
  

Cutting through all the ways we talk about mission for a minute the bottom line is this, for followers of Jesus, mission comes from God.   Period, end of story.  The mission of our church and your personal mission/purpose in life is to be Jesus to a lost and broken world.  The good news is that God has uniquely and powerfully (whether you believe it or not) equipped you to make a difference for Him.   You, yes you, are an important tool in the hand of almighty God! 

So what did Jesus do? Well he call people far from God to come home.  He also put a lot of attention on helping his followers become like him. We call this discipleship or spiritual growth.  Then he went around making our broken world a better place by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, helping the poor and empowering the weak.  Pretty over whelming isn't it?  

The truth is you personally can't  do everything Jesus did.  You and I are one small sliver of a giant thing we call the Body of Christ or the church.  The church must do everything Jesus did but individually we have each been uniquely designed  to play a small role in Jesus giant mission.

The good news is we are a part of a church that takes serious the mission of Jesus.  We are partnered with churches around the world that are calling people home to God, growing people into fully functioning followers of Jesus and helping the least, last and lost.   We use The Jesus Film, Compassionate Ministries (International, USA/Canada, District and Local) and a huge network of local churches all around the world.  

This Sunday you are going to hear from our members of a recent mission trip.  I hope you will enjoy the time and be encouraged about how you are doing good work all around the world even if you are not personally in some exotic location.  

Most of all I pray that you will prayerfully consider going on a mission trip yourself.  I know, lots of money, not much vacation time.  I get that but I also know, it will change your life in ways I can't possibly explain.  

Mission... It's a God thing.   


   

Does my work matter to God?

www.MarysvilleNaz.org

It's easy to see how some jobs are a calling.  The first one we think about is pastor, mostly because we preacher types talk about our calling.  Other jobs like medicine, fireman,  police officer and social worker just to name a few are easy to understand as callings.  

Before I became a pastor I worked in the grocery business.  Have to say it is hard to see how putting cans of beans on the shelf was much of a calling.  Don't get me wrong, the grocery industry is good, honest and honorable work.  It just doesn't seem like a calling, like it was all that important to God and His Kingdom.  

The truth is some of us have jobs that we know God called us to do.  We can easily connect the dots between what we do and the work of God in the world.  These jobs bring healing and life and we get paid to do it!  

For the vast majority the connection isn't as clear.  We work at jobs that do good and allow us to provide for our families but we can't help but wonder if our work really matters in the grand scheme of things.  I confess I struggled with that while doing good work in the business world. 

What God ultimately taught me was that I had a Missionary Job.  What that meant to me was that God had put me in a place to :"be Him to Them."  It really wasn't about cans of beans it was about the 100's of people I worked with and came in contact with.  I was a missionary to Albertsons!  God put me in there to live out His life and be His hands and feet in that place.  Let me tell you, that matters A LOT to God.  

Does your work matter to God.  BUNCHES.  If you work a job where it is easy to connect the dots give thanks.  I you have a missionary job give thanks and know that every time you walk through the doors of your place of employment, you are entering the mission field and you are the God's missionary to that place.  

Turns out not only do you matter to God, but your work matters as well.  

You can check out last weeks sermon on this topic by clicking below after Wednesday of each week. 

Remember your Baptism and Holy Party

www.MarysvilleNaz.org 

Last Sunday we did two biblically important things.  We celebrated Baptism with 15 people and we Broke Bread Together.  Click for Baptism/Picnic Pics Here

Breaking Bread is eating together and the roots of this ancient practice go back to Communion.  The early followers of Jesus regularly shared meals. It was both fellowship and the beginnings of what we would come to know as The Lord's Table.  They literally "broke" bread off a loaf and passed it to the next person to break off a piece.  Then passed a common cup of wine around.   (One of these picnics I'm going to get lots of bread in loaf form and you will have to break it off to get any bread at our meal!)  The other thing we did, baptism, predates even communion.  

On Sunday we also Holy Partied together with 15 baptisms.  As much as I love doing baptisms during our Sunday morning worship service I love it even more when we  do it at a beach.  There is just something especially powerful about baptizing people in the open and then having a giant party/picnic afterward.  Okay, I confess, I LOVE Holy Party!  Plus, I'm pretty sure Jesus was a Holy Party animal, I mean, isn't that kind of the definition of Heaven? 

There was one serious note during our party.  Just before we started the baptism I asked you all to remember your baptism.  I encouraged you to at some point touch the water and call to mind the day you were baptized and to reflect on what God had done for you.  I reminded you that a part of baptism is Sealing.  That means He claims you as His own and Seals you with His seal of ownership, authority and protection.

Yep you've screwed up since your baptism and you will again but you are sealed with the signet ring of the King of kings and Lord of lords.  You belong to him and every time we participate in the sacraments (communion and baptism)  we call you to remember that.   

Remembering is HUGE to the christian faith.  Baptism is not just for the person being baptized.  It is a scared moment for the whole church when we celebrate with those taking this important step of faith but we also are called to return again to our baptism.  Remember who you are (child of God) and whose you are, (God's).  Touch the water, remember it flowing over you in cleansing, death to self and ultimately resurrection into new life!  

Baptism... Holy Party at it's best.   Remember your baptism!   

Ordinary - Failure Is Your Friend... no really.

www.MarysvilleNaz.org 

Success ended for me when I started school.  Up until then I had been surrounded by folks that put up with my, shall we say eccentricities because they loved me.  Having left the protective cocoon of home and family I ran smack into failure.   Little did I know that failure was to be my unwanted companion for a long time.  

As an ADHD child, before anyone knew what that was, the school years were more than a little tough for me.  I got my first, but not last, spanking within days of the start of Kindergarten.  I flunked (that was the word they used then) the 2nd grade.  2nd grade was also when my  teacher publicly called me out in front of the whole class and verbally dressed me down.  By 3rd grade I was in Special Education.  In 4th grade my parents moved me to another school district but I couldn't read very well and I couldn't spell at all.  More importantly the embarrassment and humiliation of all the failures left me more concerned with protecting myself emotionally than almost anything else including school.  I was pretty much the poster child for trouble.  I think my 3rd grade teacher summed it up best at the conclusion of the last parents conference... Craig is never going to set the world on fire.  Yep, that's me.  By the 3rd grade the world had decided I was failure. 

I'll spare you the long list of other failures that would dog my path because the details are not  important.  Truth is everyone has a story of failure, struggle and brokenness.  We carry these stories around inside us because like it or not,  they have become a part of who we are.  We also have scars from our past failures that somehow reach out and trouble us today.   Over the years I've learned far more than I ever wanted to know about dealing with failure. 

Probably the most important thing I've learned about failure and trust me I'm a bona fide  expert, is this.  Failure is your friend.  I know this seems crazy and it's certainly counter to the messages of our society but I'm not someone who is unacquainted with failure offering you a tired platitude.  

For us Ordinary people God has an extraordinary message.  It is found in Romans 8, which is a chapter of the Bible written just for those of us that are overly familiar with failure.  I don't have space for to talk about the whole chapter so read it for yourself but let me hit one really important thing.  
  
Verse 28 "... we know that in all things God works for the good..."  Notice it doesn't say all things are good. (that would be silly)  It says that in those bad things God works to bring good outcomes.   In other words God takes failure, brokenness even sin and brings good, positive life affirming stuff out of it.  I've experienced this personally.  

I've discovered over and over that God uses all the brokenness and failure of my childhood and adolescence not only to bless others but to form me into the person He wants me to be.  I don't think God did those things to me but I love that I serve a God that takes even my greatest failures and transforms them into good stuff.  The bottom line is that God uses our failures to make us more like him and as a bonus uses them to bless others. (double whammy)  

The key for me was letting God have those failures.   I had to own them, stop being embarrassed about them and put them in God's hands to use as he pleased knowing he thought no less of me because of them.  When I finally did that I was able to start sharing my story and it was then that I saw God bring so much good to others who were grappling with their own failure.   -- Strange, now when I tell my story of failure, struggle and defeat I find myself thinking, Hello Old Friend.   I'm so glad you are in my life.  NEVER want to go there again but without you I would not be half the person I am today.   -- Yep, failure is my friend, how about you?  

Ordinary - You are God's Art Work!

www.MarysvilleNaz.org   

Last Sunday we started a new teaching series called Ordinary.  It's all about how God has a very high view of Ordinary people like me, and frankly like you.  It's also about how God looks at people differently from the rest of the world. 

I told you Sunday that telling someone they can be anything they want was a lie.  More than that, it sets them up for deeper feelings of inadequacy when they discover the truth.

While it is true you can't be anything you want, the more important truth is that God has designed  and created you to be someone and do something.  The message I find encouraging is that even a scrub like me has a purpose and life's work in God's plan.  How cool is that!  

Even more, His plan for my Ordinary life is one that counts for eternity.  It may not be high profile or even highly profitable but it does matter.  In fact it matters a lot.  When you become who God made you to be and do what he built you to do, lives will be touched and you will make a difference.  You may not even see the results in this life, but it will happen and your life will matter. 

You are God's artwork designed with an eternal purpose.  So the question is, do you want to keep perusing things that will never satisfy your soul or do you want to become the amazing thing God designed for you.   Seems clear to me, but you decided... no pressure... really.   

You can check out the sermon here after Thursday.
http://www.marysvillenaz.org/index.php/resources/sermon-video

Gone Fishing

www.MarysvilleNaz.org

A few years after college I nearly lost a friend because I didn't invited him to join a group of our friends that were going fishing.  I didn't even know he fished.  He never talked about it, never expressed interest in it and just didn't seem like the fishing type.  However, when we got back from the trip I found out he was hurt that we had not invited him.  It was a painful lesson for me.

I discovered that just because I think someone might not be interested doesn't really mean much.  Turns out I'm not as good at predicting what people will to do as I thought.  Worst of all, my assumptions about him that led to the failure to invite resulted in him feeling left out.

I think feeling left out is one of the worst feelings.  If feels like you really didn't know those people, maybe they aren't really your friends sometimes it even feels like betrayal.  Besides, look at all the fun they had laughing and telling stories!  I want to be a part of that!  

I think the same thing applies to church.  We love our church.  We laugh, we sing, we connect with friends and encounter the living God.  Yet as much as we love our church we usually don't invite others.  This is often because we assume they would say no, they would be offended, they wouldn't like it or they're not church folks.  

I recently read that 2/3 of people who do not go to church would accept warmly an invitation from a friend to join them at church.  I have to tell you that feels like my friend situation all over again.  I mean what happens at the judgement when God replays my life and my unchurched friends see all the great things about our church?  Will they look at me and say... hey, why didn't you invite me?  I thought we were friends? I would have gone to a church like that!  

My friend from back then is still my friend but only because we all apologized and made sure he was invited on the next trip.  (We kind of drowned him in invitations)  You know what was really strange?  He wasn't a fisherman!  -- In fact he nearly hooked me a couple of times while casting!   -  Turns out it wasn't about fishing at all.  It was about wanting to be a part of what was going on and participating in the laughter and love, that's what friends do.  The end of the story is that he became a fishermen... funny how that works.  

www.MarysvilleNaz.org