Check out the tumblr blog, where most everything will now be posted!

Hey there!
So, I'm on to tumblr, which is a great way of blogging that is hyper-visual. If you have a moment I'd invite you to check it out. I've still got a long way to go to catch-up, content-wise, but I really like the visual format of tumblr. I will still post occasional sermon manuscripts, orders of worship, and more text-heavy things on this sight but will primarily be on tumblr. Hope to see you there!!!
Grace and peace,
Joe

Sermon Manuscript for the 2011 United Methodist Student Movement Student Forum

This past weekend was amazing! I had the amazing blessing to preach at the 2011 United Methodist Student Movement Student Forum, held at the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana. I was a little overwhelmed for a few moments when I read that Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at the Forum back in the 1960's. The event was wonderful: the students were absolutely amazing. The church is going to be in good shape! The text for the sermon was Galatians 3:28. Thanks to Joseph McBrayer for the photo!


Do It Again
The United Methodist Student Movement
2011 Student Forum

Primary thoughts: we are made by God to be in community, connected, to be one body, beautiful in our diversity. When we are able to recognize and overcome with love and grace the things that divide us, the root cause of which is fear, we will become a movement again, we will partner with God to transform the world!

Intro--Center

We are going to pray before we hear the scripture proclaimed by singing together an invocation to the Holy Spirit from the Iona Community in Scotland.

Sing "Come, Holy Spirit" read Galatians 3:28, vamp last line.

Pray...

TRAVIS PARK

(MOVE TO STAGE RIGHT)


Have you ever had a transformational experience? One that altered the way you live, or work, or the way that you understand what God is doing in the world?

I'd like to share with you one of those moments from my life. It occurred in my previous appointment at Travis Park UMC in downtown San Antonio, Texas.

Loved serving at TPUMC, downtown San Antonio, first Protestant church in San Antonio, The UpperRoom Devotional Guide was birthed there, as was the Methodist Mission Home. By the time we got there the church was reinventing itself by being in ministry with those on the matins of society. We served 50,000 meals a year to anyone who was hungry, had medical, dental, and vision clinics in the church, employment assistance programs and ID recovery. When Katrina came we had over 25,000 displaced folks living in San Antonio and the city and FEMA gave the church the contract for all of their ID recovery needs.

And the community itself was a slice of the kingdom of God! People of all races, ages, genders, sexual orientations, economic and educational status, and political stripes worshipped together. It was beautiful!

The church was very rewarding and also very challenging. It was, at times, difficult to stay unified with such a wonderfully diverse group of people. The possibility for division was always present.

I was finishing up my ordination requirements when first appointed to Travis Park when I had a transformative experience. I had finished everything for ordination save one sermon that had to be videotaped and turned in to the Board of Ordained Ministry for evaluation.

Now, I'm an associate pastor and, as an associate, we never get the prime preaching times! So, I was scheduled to preach the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the last Sunday in November. Everything for ordination was due the first week of December, so I had one chance to get this right!

I'm preaching and it's going great! I've connected with the people and it's rockin'! I'm wrapping up the sermon on the prologue to The Gospel of John, preaching about how the Kingdom of God ia an "already/not yet" kind of thing when a man stands up in the balcony and yells out "Sir, Sir, excuse me, Sir, I have a question."
Now, its amazing how many different thoughts one can have in a very short time.

Here's just a sample of the things that were running through my head:
I will confess that I'm not proud of this but my first thought was "OH MY GOD! What am I going to do?"
My second thought was filled with sarcasm, "well of course it would go down like this!"
The third thought was, "just keep going, he will stop!". I tried that for about two seconds and it became abundantly clear he wasn't going to stop.
My fourth thought was one based in fear: "My ordination!!! I've worked so hard and it's all about to go down the drain if I can't answer this man appropriately."
Then, I had a spiritual breakthrough. The Spirit said, "Joe, this is not about you. It's about the community and what I'm doing here."
I realized I had a choice: I could continue to make the divide that was occurring in the community worse and suffer more indignnity on this poor man, or, I could get real with it, address my brother with dignity and respect and keep e sanctity of the moment.

Thanks be to God, the Spirit saw it fit to give me the grace to choose the latter. We had a brief exchange and agreed to talk about it after the sermon.

(MOVE TO STAGE LEFT)

After I had a chance to debrief the experience I felt some shame, i will be honest with you, in that my initial reactions were motivated by fear.


Fear is a powerful force: it can create division amongst us and it can enslave us.

There is something in the human condition that, when left unchecked, has the potential to want to label people and things in order to compartmentalize and marginalize them. Why do so many of us seem to have dualistic, binary thinking as our default setting? Many of us have sold out completely to Greek dualistic thought.

Why is it that we, in our darkest moments feel the need to unravel the rich tapestry that God continues to weave so and to take those threads and use them to create separate, homogenous banners that proclaim "us" versus "them."

Some politicians seek to divide us with fear, some members of the media seek to divide us with fear, some religious leaders, in all traditions, instead of using our common ground of love and compassion as tools of unity strive to separate us from one another using fear based tactics.

Fear...it is the lingua franca of the day. Fear can pollute individual hearts, heads, families, churches, communities, governmental policies, cultures and ultimately all of creation.

This proclivity for divisiveness caused by fear is prevalent in our day and as we have heard, it was clearly prevalent in Paul's day as well.

(MOVE TO CENTER)


But...our Creator has given us a powerful command regarding fear.

You know what the number one imperative in the Bible is, don't you? 

“DO NOT BE AFRAID!”

Do not be afraid. Every time something divine connects with humanity in the Bible we hear the same phrase repeated over and over again: do not be afraid.

Sisters and brothers, fear-filled insular creatures is not who God intends for us to be!

God’s dream for us is so much richer and deeper and more connective than that! I say again to you, "do not be afraid."

God is calling us to love and to be united, to be in community: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear!

The Biblical Record

In Genesis we see God creating the world. The artist in me loves that the first trait we see in God is that God is creative. Since we are made in God's image it means that each of us is fundamentally creative as well!

God calls all that God has made, the cosmos, from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the largest whirling and swirling galaxies and God, with an admiring smile pronounces it good,...except for when God made us. God looked at a symbolic Adam and said, “Wow! You are not just good, you are very good.”

You, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and me, everyone in this room God calls very good, you are precious and beloved to me! God made us for good out of God's goodness. In Zephaniah 3:17 God says to us that God take great delight in us and rejoices over us with singing! What an amazing, transformative and radical thought! Why would we ever give into fear?

And after pronouncing all of this goodness, God looks at Adam, in Genesis 2:18, and says, for the first time, that something is not good. God sees that Adam is by himself and God says, “it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." 

Do you see what God proclaims here? God MADE us for community, God made us for Godself and for one another and God calls us to be in community with each other and with God, just as God is in community with Gods-self in the Trinity.

God says to us: "do not be afraid of anything!". Especially, do not be afraid to be how I have made you to be.

Recall Moses, who was rightly terrified of leading a liberation movement and of confronting Pharaoh. God said to him, "Do not be afraid, I am with you."

Think of the prophets, who every time imperialistic forces or desires encroached upon the Israelites, God asked the prophets to call the people back to themselves with the assurance that God would always be with them and to not let fear rule their actions.

Remember Jesus, sleeping on the boat in the midst of a terrible storm. The storm was so bad the apostles thought they were going to die! They wake up Jesus and he says, "Why are you afraid?" Can you imagine? The implication being that they shouldn't be afraid, because He is with them. Jesus' promise to his disciples, that he would be with them to the end of the age is his promise to us as well.

God calls us not to be afraid!

Consider Paul. In Romans 8 Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God, therefore we should not be ruled by fear

The apostle Paul’s world, was, in some respects, very much like our own. In the letter to the Galatian Church, Paul was addressing the issue of division, a division that was rooted in fear. Paul spent much of his life fighting divisions.

The Galatians church was divided between Greeks and circumcised Jews and their social standing and cultural heritage was being used to divide them from one another.

Paul, in addressing this division, does something brilliant! He cites to the Galatian church a baptismal liturgy saying there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female in God’s family.

There can be no social divisions in God's family, all are more than equal, all are sister and brother, all are children of God. Paul was reminds them of their unity in their baptism!

And though Paul’s words sound to some of our 21st century ears as conservative and antiquated they were actually revolutionary in the Graeco-Roman world that Paul lived in.

And, as we realize this, if we believe that the Bible has something to us to say today, we must use Galatians 3:28 as one of our cornerstones for theological reflection on what it means to be a community of little Christ’s, to be the body of Christ, made beautifully and wonderfully diverse yet united in our baptismal identity!

Paul had a vision for the church: it was to be a movement in which all are one in Christ: a church united at one table.

As Richard B. Hayes has said, the church is to be “an alternative community that prefigures the new creation in the midst of a world that continues to resist God’s justice.” (repeat)

God is calling us to be different and to live in the light of God, open to what God is doing in the world and the future to which Christ is continually pulling us into.

The Arch and Ubuntu

One of my heroes in the faith and one of my theological teachers is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He has given the world a great gift by introducing us to the African theology of Ubuntu.

In essence ubuntu means this: We can only fully become what God made us to be when others are able to fully be what God has called them to be. (repeat)

We can only experience the fullness of God's dreams of true community, when we recognize Christ in the other and our mutual need of one another.

I am completely convinced that this is part of God’s dream for us: to be people who live together in unity, in wholeness, in harmony with one another and also dependent upon one another. There is no such thing as a self made person. You and I would not be here on this beautiful campus tonight without the help of other people.

God made us to be family. When the body of Christ is at its best we treat one another as beloved sisters and brothers, united in our baptismal identity.

We need each other, because we depend upon one another for many things, one of which being the work that you are doing this weekend. Everyone here has a way of seeing the world and separate set of gifts. We need each other! You have gifts that I don't have and I have gifts that you don't have. The body of Christ needs all of it's eyes to be eyes and its feet to be feet and for all of it's systems to work together.

Ubuntu is a liberating theology: How can I know who God has called you to be unless I KNOW you? We can only know each other by being in dialogue with one another such as we are this weekend and by sharing at the Lord’s Table together, by being in the presence of the Risen Christ and by loving and listening to one another.

And when we are able to see the Imago Dei, the image of God in each of us, we can see that the false, binary thinking that we so often fall prey to is really unworthy of God, unworthy of the Beloved Community, and unworthy of the future that God is co-creating with us right now.

We are to live and to love and to serve now as a sign to the world as to what it looks like to be citizens of the Reign of God. We are to be what it looks like when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven!

We are to be a community who celebrates the diverse ways that God has created us and weaves a rich, united tapestry of life together in God’s Kingdom!

And when we do that, we will become a movement again. But the church cannot become a movement without you.

Becoming a Movement Again

You have to help bring us forward, for you are the hands and feet of Christ. God has no one but us! We need you to be you, the way God made you, with all of your unique gifts and graces. Especially if you are feeling a bit maladjusted towards the situations that are unjust in this church and in the world. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

History is filled with progress and regress. The progress seems to come fastest when the church behaves as a movement!

Remember Francis of Assisi, who after receiving a calling from God to repair God’s Church, partnered with God to live a life of love and service and who challenged a generation of church leadership and has inspired Christians for hundreds of years and who founded a movement based on love and service to the least of these.

Remember Margaret Fell, who partnered with God while in prison in 1667 to write Women’s Speaking Justified which helped paved the way for many movements who have worked tirelessly to make Galatians 3:28 a reality.

Remember Martin Luther King Jr., who though only 26 years old, some of you here tonight are about that age if you are on the five or six year program, at the urging of his colleagues decided to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, despite the threats and attempts against his life and the life of his family. He partnered with God to lead the American Civil Rights movement which proclaimed liberation and peace and justice for all of God’s children.

Remember the Freedom Riders who fifty years ago this month partnered with God to bring courage and inspiration to the same movement that Dr. King worked with.

Remember Mother Teresa, who, after her death, we learned had large doubts about the very existence of God but in spite of her doubt, stepped out on faith and partnered with God to serve the poorest of the poor in India and sparked a movement that inspired the world.

Remember Shane Claiborne, who is partnering with God as we speak to build a movement of New Monasticism that is speaking a vibrant and powerful word to the institutional church.

Friends, you are not alone! You are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. But, with the exception of Shane Claiborne, that was then. And this is now.

God has seen it fit to bring each of you here. Each of you has something important and valuable to say to each other, to me, to the church, and to the world.

God is calling and we are responding! We are ready! We are ready to take our place in the line of endless splendor, to take the baton from those who have run the race before us so faithfully, and to lead the church in a new direction for the 21st century.
We live in a new day with new challenges. The church is in the midst of a sea-change, a reformation the likes of which haven’t been seen in five hundred years.

The time to lead is now, the time to speak is now, the time to love is now, the time for reconciliation is now. It is our time, it is our time to be the change we want to see. It is our time to sow the seeds of compassion, and unity, and love, and grace, and justice. Because if we do that, we will become a movement of God once again.

God is calling us, friends, God is calling you and God is calling me.

Lesson from London.
An Episcopalian priest traveled to London last spring for some meetings. He only had one day to tour the city. Because it was close to the hotel he was staying in, the priest decided to go to the City of London Museum. The museum is on Aldersgate Street and sits across the street from the church where John Wesley had his awakening experience.
(CLICK)
The museum hosted “London through the Centuries” exhibit. The priest toured through the Mesolithic period of London to the Roman period to medieval London to the 18th century London, wherein a plaque read: “At the beginning of the eighteenth century, London was riddled with disease, crime, grime, illiteracy and addictions of every sort. Without the faithful work of John and Charles Wesley and their Methodist followers, London would have been a far worse place at the beginning of the 19th century. These significantly changed the lives of Londoners for years to come.” The priest was affected greatly by this, finished his tour and made his way back to the Metroplex. As he drove home from the airport, when he passed the United Methodist Church’s lining his route, he found himself praying: “God, please do it again.”
(CLICK)
God, do it again! “God, do it again!”
Are you with me? “God, do it again!”
People of love! "God, do it again!”
A people who love God! “God, do it again!”
A people who love our neighbors! “God, do it again!”
A people of love our enemies! "God, do it again!”
A people who work for justice! “God, do it again!”
A people who are letting the Jesus in them shine brighter every day! “God, do it again!”
A people who love more! “God, do it again!”
A people who live more! “God, do it again!”
A people who serve more! “God, do it again!”
A people who don’t take life for granted! “God, do it again!”
A people who are part of a movement! "God, do it again!”
A people who gather around Christ’s table, to be filled with God’s grace and then sent out into the world to love and to serve. God, do it again.

Remember it was college students that God used to get this movement started 300 years ago and I believe that God will use college students again--not the bishops, not the large churches ...YOU.  Charles Wesley, John Wesley and their friends decided to a live a holier life and it transformed not just London, but the world.  Their decision to live a holier life has influenced YOU to be here and live a holier life.  We can shout "do it again" to God over, but here's what you need to hear: God saying it right back to you 'do it again...do it again...I love you my precious child and I can do great things through you..partner with me to do it again!'
In the name of our Creator, Liberator, and Sustainer, let all of God's children say: Amen


PASSING OF THE PEACE.

Our first healing and wholeness service

This past Saturday night AUMC hosted its first ever Healing and Wholeness service, as part of the Soul Cafe Worship series. The above imagine was taken by Matthew Kelling, our Director of Media Ministries. I learned this particular lighting trick from the amazing Dr. Marcia McFee!

The joys of the remix/arrangement

Tonight, while working on a variety of different projects I've been listening to Jaydiohead and Rodehead...Jaydiohead is the creation of Max Tannone, an artist out of NYC. It's a mash-up of Jay-Z and Radiohead and it is stellar! Rodeohead is just what it sounds like. Good times!

Pillars of the Earth

One of the best books I've read so far this year, in my quest to read more fiction, is "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. The book was recommended to me by my dear friends Jackson and Katie Henry. Jackson used an excerpt of the book in a worship service he designed for Lake Junaluska around the theme of silence. I remember worshipping in the service and being very struck by the reading.
The book has been called Follett's masterpiece and I believe it! The work centers around the building of a cathedral in medieval England. The cathedral itself is one of the main characters. Sadly, I've got to run to a meeting but I wholeheartedly recommend the book: it is AMAZING!
Hope you have a great day!

The Search for God and Guinness

I had the great blessing to receive as a gift for Christmas this year a Kindle. I LOVE it! Ever since I was a little boy I've loved to read and the Kindle has really been a blessing for me as I can read all kinds of books quickly and it has been a blessing to my spouse because it has cut back on the flood of books in our home!

One of the books I've read this year is Stephen Mansfield's "The Search for God and Guinness." Mansfield provides an overview of the history of Christianity and beer as well as the rise of the Guinness family and business. I had read somewhere else (I can't remember where, sadly) that Arthur Guinness heard John Wesley preach in Dublin and was much moved by the experience. As a Wesleyan I had to know more! Mansfield does a commendable job tracing the influence of Wesley and others and their impact on the development of the exceptional respect that the Guinness family had for its employees. That in and of itself is worth the read. I would hope those who own businesses or have supervisory responsibilities would read this book and take the lessons from the Guinness family regarding the treatment of employees to heart!

At the end of the book, Mansfield draws a few lessons for us from the Guinness family. The lesson that struck me most was this: Think in terms of generations yet to come. This is the theme for this week's posts, from Bach to Guinness to cathedral building. Mansfield says,

"Historians tell us that more than twenty-three generations were required to complete the glorious Canterbury Cathedral of England. We know that men sometimes worked all their lives on a portico or a vault or a series of pillars, understanding their labors as an offering to God. And when they were about to die, they often asked to be taken to the place they had worked in the cathedral. With their family gathered around them, they would pass their tools to their sons and command the next generation to further progress on that tabernacle of God. Then, in peace, they would pass form this life.
It is a vision that is easily lost, this idea of each generation playing a role in a larger purpose, but it has proven a pathway to success time and again."

The Guinness family embodied the idea of seeing themselves and their story as part of a greater story. Isn't it easy to miss this in our own lives? I know how often I get caught up in short term thinking. The tyranny of now. Certainly there are circumstances that require immediate attention but too often I fail to think in terms of generations, settling instead to think in terms of minutes and hours.

As a follower of Christ and one who strives to live as a citizen of God's Reign, (as one who hopes to "further the work on the tabernacle of God, if you will) I think this has huge implications for my life. Perhaps another way of putting it could be this: we must put our story into God's story. Or, perhaps, we need to recognize that our story is a part of God's dreams for the world. Portions of God's dream for the world must unfold through us!

So today I'm striving to remember to think in bigger terms, to not be held captive by email, voicemail, meetings and facebook (and blog posts) but rather to think of my life as a part of God's story and to live not only for now but for the benefit of the generations to come.

How about you?

Happy Birthday, J.S. Bach

Happy Birthday to J.S. Bach, who turns 326 today! Seriously, 326! I wonder how differently we would conduct our lives if we believed that our daily life and work would have implications three centuries after our birth? I've been reading a few "for fun" books this year that I will post on soon that will continue this thread of investing in the future. May you see God everywhere today!

National Launch of "Worship and Song" next week!

Next week the publishing arm of The United Methodist Church will be launching a new supplement to the current hymnal called "Worship and Song." I'm excited to be a part of the launch team at this event. I hope you will be able to join us in Nashville!

PSYM 2011

Last month I had the wonderful opportunity to serve as the worship leader for the Perkins School of Youth Ministry. We had a week of incredible worship centered around the theme of the church year. Many wonderful worship artists contributed to this event! If you're interested in the rubrics to the services or in the lecture notes of a class I taught about the spirituality of the liturgical year, let me know and I'll send them to you. Have a blessed day!

Snowmeggedon 2011

What an incredible week of weather we've had here in North Texas! As I look out of my study windows, I can see 5-7 inches of fresh snow on top of a layer of ice. We are now on day 4 of school closings! I don't remember a week of weather like this since I've lived here. So, I've been able to make good use of the time at home, playing with my children, planning worship, making some pastoral care calls, catching up on some reading, cooking, watching films and making music! What a crazy and wonderful week for the Stobaugh family. Having said that, my heart is breaking for our homeless brothers and sisters who have no place to go today. I will be cleaning out my closet today and, when I can get out of the house again, will be delivering those clothes to a shelter in Denton. I hope and pray that you are well!

Link to the video of last Sunday's sermon

Here you will find a link to a video of last week's sermon, "Work Hard...Rest Easy" at Argyle UMC.
Just copy this link and paste it in your browser: http://tinyurl.com/6cocnha

"Work Hard...Rest Easy" A sermon about the importance of Sabbath.

I had the wonderful opportunity to preach today at Argyle UMC! This sermon was the last in a series entitled "First: What Happens When We Put God First in Our Lives."
Below is the outline of the sermon. (When it comes to the liberation story in Exodus I told the story in via paraphrase, which is not reflected in the outline.)
I hope you can find some Sabbath rest this week!

Work Hard…Rest Easy

• Open in prayer
• Today’s sermon is the last sermon in our series FIRST: What it means to put God first in your life.”
• Today we are going to talk about how God wants to orient us to putting him first in our weekly rhythms.
• The title of this morning’s sermon was already set out for me, and it is this: Work Hard…Rest Easy
• I’m not going to tell you all to work hard. Most of you have that figured out already. Most of us, I’ll dare to say, are in danger of working too hard.
• In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.
• According to the International Labour Organization, “Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers.” Well, maybe that last one doesn’t surprise you!
• Using data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950.
• The typical American middle-income family put in an average of 11 more hours a week in 2006 than it did in 1979.8
• We KNOW how to work hard: we’ve elevated hard work to be one of our highest virtues in our country.
• I remember growing up and learning all about the “Protestant work ethic:” in school. It is expected of us that we will work hard.
• I believe in hard work. Work is a good and wonderful thing, a Godly thing. God calls us to a life of imitation: we are to work, to create, just as God does. Creation and work can and should be a holy endeavor.
• However, one of the biggest impediments to our spiritual growth as American Christians, is that many of us do not have a healthy balance between work and rest.
• Many of us have elevated work to idol status in our lives. We’ve made having a packed schedule a badge of honor. I’ve even heard people brag about their ulcers!
• Our culture has a fetish with busyness and laziness is often regarded as the ultimate American sin. If you are not always busy, you must not be living right!
• If you don’t have your smart phone with you and on 24/7 then you aren’t working hard enough!
• This lack of balance between work and rest is a matter of life and death, both physical death and spiritual death.
• As I said earlier, I remember learning about the Protestant Work Ethic brought to the America’s by the Puritans. I recently read another well-known phrase from the Puritans that I didn’t learn in school: “Good Sabbaths make Good Christians.”
• While the Puritans went about life in a much more sever manner than most of us would be comfortable with today, they were on to something here! Work Hard…Rest Easy.
• Work and rest must go hand-in-hand. So today, we are reflecting on the God’s goodness and wisdom and God’s dreams for us: God has given us a command to rest and to be in community. Jesus has given us the pattern for life that he wants us to follow.
• We are to ‘set-apart’ one day in seven as a day of rest. We are to make time to go away and pray and then to get back into the action!
• This is hard for us to do! It doesn’t really matter how you occupy your time, the temptation to get out of balance is very easy.
• Let me just illustrate this with a story from a period of time in my life.
• As Will Rogers used to say: “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” This was the case for me.
• My education in keeping the Sabbath and what happens when you don’t came by my breaking the commandment frequently and repeatedly! I was one of the chief sinners and I learned some very hard lessons in my first appointment.
• It was my first church out of seminary, a big church with 2400 members and 10-12 ensembles rehearsing during the week and I was so gung-ho about the kingdom of God, and so in love with Jesus, that I got into the habit of working 60-90 hour weeks, of being at the church every day and always available on the phone.
• After about a year of that, I realized that I was becoming bitter, angry and resentful.
• I never took a Sabbath. As I look back at that time, I realized how much life I missed. My life was out of balance!
• I got caught up, unintentionally and subconsciously, in believing that the kingdom was only going to come if I helped bring it about. While there is an element of truth in that last statement, it is incredibly easy for us to elevate our work over the work that God has done and is doing.
• I had completely lost the realization that God had already brought the kingdom here through Jesus Christ.
• I lost sight of this because I had completely violated the first and fourth commandments! Thou shall not have any other god’s before me and thou shall observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.
• The violation of the first commandment came about because of the violation of the fourth commandment.
• Friends, I just got out of synch: my work consumed me and thus came to define me. This lack of balance caused me to miss out on much of the wisdom of God, the rest that only God can give as well as the good things that God wanted for me.
Anybody been there?
• Have you ever become so consumed by what you were doing that you missed what God was doing in your life and in the lives of those around you?
• God doesn’t want that for us. God doesn’t want us to work ourselves to death.
• God wants something better for each of us. God has dreams for us that are richer and more beautiful than death by work!
• God knows us well, knows our tendencies and our foibles, God knew we’d need help developing a healthy balance of work and rest.
• And so, God gives us several examples of how important it is to develop a healthy work-rest balance in the Bible. Let’s take a look at a few of these moments.

SCRIPTURAL BASIS FOR SABBATH—THE CREATION ACCOUNT

• In the very beginning of the Bible we find God creating! God was, and is, at work! In the beginning God created for six days and then what? On the seventh day, he rested!
• Did God need a break? No! God finished his project and ceased working on it. I think God was also trying to teach us something essential: we must rest on a regular basis. We must cease our labor.
• God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it: this Sabbath day is supposed to have a unique status amongst God’s people.
• From the very beginning, we find God setting out the life-giving rhythm for us of work and rest.

SCRIPTURAL BASIS FOR SABBATH—THE LIBERATION STORY
• Then, we move to the next book of the Bible and we find the story of the exodus from Egypt. I hope you will go home and read it this afternoon, it’s an incredible story that is foundational to who we are followers of Christ. We could spend a six-week sermon series on this story alone!
• Early in the first chapter of Exodus, we learn that the Israelites are living in Egypt when “A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come let us deal shrewdly with them.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor…The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.” (Exodus 1:8-15)
• Here we see something very different enter the story of God’s people. Here we see how the good and Godly act of creation can be used for evil.
• A few paragraphs later, we find Moses encountering God in the burning bush.
• God tells Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have hear their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
• God is telling the Israelites, and us, that God keeps his promises!
• Eventually in the story, God convinces Moses to do what God has called him to do and so Moses and Aaron head to Egypt to help liberate God’s people for the horrible workload that the Egyptians have placed upon them.
• Of course, this doesn’t sit well with Pharaoh, who increases the people’s work and makes impossible demands on them. Pharaoh tries to break the people and to “keep them in line” by forcing impossible work on them.
• He tries to keep them distracted from becoming the people God has called them to be.
• Even though Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, God’s will cannot be denied! God keeps his promises and liberates his people!
• The liberation of the Israelites from the slavery inflicted upon them by the Egyptians is one of the most foundational stories of our faith: their story is our story.
• Sisters and brothers, God wants all of God’s children to be free from bondage and oppression! Only when we are free from the bondage of a seven-day workweek can we truly become the people of God that God calls us to be.
• We are told all the time that we are what we can consume, that our value as human beings comes from what we can buy.
• We are told that we live in a time of scarcity! Fear is one of the devil’s greatest tools! But God tells us over and over again, “Do Not Be Afraid!”
• God’s economy is not one of scarcity but rather one of abundance. There IS enough for everyone if we but live out our trust in God!
• God made us to be in relationship with God and with one another, to love and to serve and to liberate God’s Creation.
• We can’t live the life that God has made us for when we are working seven days a week. There’s simply no time to connect, to reflect, to prioritize and to rest.

THE GIFT OF THE DECALOGUE

• After being liberated from the Egyptians, the Israelites have a 40-year adventure in the wilderness on their way to the land promised to them by God.
• One of their most important stops occurs at Mount Horeb also known as Mount Sinai, where God gives Moses The Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.
• John Wesley called the Ten Commandments a “complete scheme of Christian practice.”
• The observance of Shabbat is so central to the lives of the Jewish people that is it is recounted twice in the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scripture.
• In Exodus 20:8-11 we find “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.” (NRSV)
• The primary focus of this account is remembrance of what God has done and the command to imitate God. To strive for holiness, to strive to be like God by reorienting our weekly schedule to God.
• Remember God and be like God. We are to remember that God worked for six days and that on the seventh day, God rested. The seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD, our God, and so it should be for us.
• Now the account in Deuteronomy 5 has a different and equally important set of nuances. “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”
• While we find a lot of similar themes from Exodus the writer of this Scripture has now added the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, of God liberating God’s people from oppression and overwork so that they could bless the world as God intended.
• In addition to remembering and imitating God by striving to become more holy, now we are to also remember our liberation.
• As Christians we remember Jesus’ victory over sin and death on the Sabbath, our liberation from sin and death through the work of Jesus Christ.
• Did you know that the commandment to keep the Sabbath has the longest instruction of any of the Ten Commandments?
• God KNEW we were going to struggle with keeping this one, and further, God knew of our tendency to play Pharaoh to those who have less power than we do.
• Later in Deuteronomy we find whole chapters given over on how to keep the Sabbath.
• We need so much instruction in this because we are not good at it! At least, I’m not.

THE PATTERN OF JESUS

• Then we come to Jesus, the consummate Jew. Throughout the Gospels we find Jesus engaging in a similar pattern: work, ministry, service, and prayer and rest.
• It probably goes without saying but the Sabbath was very important to Jesus, as Jesus himself says he is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus never tells us to do away with the Sabbath; but rather refines for us what it means to observe the Sabbath.
• Jesus, the Son of God, needed times of prayer and rest to be rejuvenated for his work.
• Over and over again we find this pattern in the life of Jesus.
• If Jesus needed this time, how much more do we!
• In Mark 2:27-28 Jesus tells us that the Sabbath was made for us! Sabbath is a gift from God to us and, we are free to enter it and observe it as a matter of Christian liberty.



HOW DOES ONE ENJOY A SABBATH?

• Many of us have a pre-conceived notion, given to us by our Puritan ancestors, that the observance of the Sabbath is about being shut-up in one’s home and, if we are to be honest, being bored.
• Jesus gives us a very different picture: a God who loves us made the Sabbath for us!
• We are to rest in the fact that God is God and we are not. Sabbath, when observed, brings perspective to us: when we cease our work we find that the world continues on without us and that is a good thing!
• Our salvation, the good life that God has provided for us is not dependent upon our effort: it is a gift from God.
• So, how do we observe Sabbath?
• I’ll give you two hints. One is a statement, the other is a question.
• Pastor Mark Buchanan has put it simply: to properly observe Sabbath we must “cease work and embrace the things that give life.”
• “Cease work and embrace the things that give life.”
• Simply put, whatever it is that you do for work, if you are so blessed as to have it in this economy, try to cease it one day of the week and rest.
• For most of us, Sunday is the ideal day to observe and keep the Sabbath, but the day of the week one observes Sabbath is not essential to keeping it. I do my best to observe the Sabbath on Friday’s, for example.
• In addition to stopping the work we do six days of the week, we are to embrace the things that make for life. The first of these things, and the most important, is the worship of God. For Christians, we are to worship together every Sunday, at a minimum. Worship gives us life and allows us to focus our love, adoration, and attention on that which truly deserves it: the Triune God!
• We are also to be in community with other Christians, with our friends and with our families if we are so blessed to be near them. We are to be in community. We are not to be alone.
• A second hint: one of my favorite authors who write about Sabbath is a man named Dan Allender, who lives in Washington. He asks a great framing question for observing the Sabbath: “What would you do for twenty-four hours if the only criteria were to pursue your deepest joy.” (Repeat the question.)
• I hope you will pray about that this week and that you will come up with an answer.
• And, whatever that answer is, as long as it leads to God’s glory and doesn’t hurt others: do it! Talk a nap, take a walk, read books or see films that deal with resurrection! The Sabbath is about freedom!
• Get some rest and recreation time. Play some music, look at beautiful art. Enjoy the sensual things, like the weather yesterday, that God has given us.
• Feast! Be playful! Be grateful. Be with your friends and family!
• Get a beautiful journal and a nice pen and take an hour each Sabbath to write down and remember all of the things for which you are grateful.
• The point of all this is, make time for the things that bring life, rest and joy!
• Our ministry, friends, in the world, is too hard to do well, and joyfully, and faithfully, without an ability to rest in God and to trust God, so that we can be reclaimed and revitalized and renewed by God.
• It is through keeping the Sabbath that our lives are changed, because we live in God’s rhythm of time. The pattern of creation, liberation and resurrection becomes the pattern of our lives as well. Through Sabbath we gain an added sense of perspective about life. We learn what is important and what isn’t.
• Sabbath life is part of life in the kingdom of God: worship, community, rest, and play (in that order) are an important part of God’s creation and of God’s dreams for us. Sabbath is to be joyful and to allow us to restfully reorient our lives to God.
• As far as my Sabbath journey goes, I can tell you I now only occasionally work those 90-hour weeks. By continuing to learn to keep the Sabbath, my life becomes ever more oriented toward God.
• Sarah, my wife will tell you, I am a better person to be around and I mostly enjoy the yoke that God has placed on me. My prayer life has deepened considerably and, honestly, I have become physically healthier and more efficient.
• More importantly, I have learned that the weight of the world does not solely hang on my shoulders but primarily on God’s, and that is one of the most freeing epiphanies I have ever experienced.
• The Hebrew word for holy is best translated as being ‘set apart.’ I pray that you will be able to set apart a day, preferably Sunday, where you can strive for holiness by observing the Sabbath.
• I pray that you will say yes to God’s gracious gift of Sabbath in your life.
• I’d like to close today by praying a prayer I found this week from Shane Claiborne, a prayer to welcome the Sabbath. Let us pray:

Lord of Creation,
create in us a new rhythm of life
composed of hours that sustain rather than stress,
of days that deliver rather than destroy,
of time that tickles rather than tackles.


Lord of Liberation,
by the rhythm of your truth, set us free
from the bondage and baggage that break us,
from the Pharaohs and fellows who fail us,
from the plans and pursuits that prey upon us.


Lord of Resurrection,
may we be raised into the rhythm of your new life,
dead to deceitful calendars,
dead to fleeting friend requests,
dead to the empty peace of our accomplishments.

To our packed-full planners, we bid, “Peace!”
To our over-caffeinated consciences, we say, “Cease!”
To our suffocating selves, Lord, grant release.

Drowning in a sea of deadlines and death chimes,
we rest in you, our lifeline.

By your ever-restful grace,
allow us to enter your Sabbath rest
as your Sabbath rest enters into us.

In the name of our Creator,
our Liberator,
our Resurrection and Life,
let all of God’s children say:
Amen.

January, 30th, 2011

The Feast of the Epiphany

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany! I hope that you are experiencing the joy of this day to the fullest.
May God's grace and peace be your's today!

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Location:Redwood Dr,Corinth,United States

Happy New Year!

Hello! Happy New Year! Can you believe it's 2011?!?! I'm so ready for 2011, you? God bless you! I have a feeling this is going to be an amazing year!



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