Members of our congregation were asked to write some devotionals to make up a collection and to be read during services in November. Below is a sample of one of those devotionals. View entire devotional booklet as a PDF.
Thank You for My Life
Dear God, thank you for my life on this earth, however challenging or not.
Thank you for giving me free will to love and be loved, to make my own decisions, to learn from my mistakes, to laugh when I am happy, to cry when I am sad.
Thank you for my family, my pets, and for every other living creature I meet along my journey.
Thank you for giving me the strength to overcome adversity, to do what’s right for the benefit of others, and to rise above negativity.
Thank you for giving me hope for an end to world suffering, pain and war for a better world filled with light and everlasting love.
During my renewal leave my family and I had an awesome visit to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Our last full day there we took a ride on mules down into the Grand Canyon and witnessed a woman hiker being knocked off the edge of the trail into the Grand Canyon.
We were being lead into the Grand Canyon by a very experienced mule wrangler and mule train had stopped to let the wrangler go back and straighten up and tighten up the saddle of a woman who had got her saddle leaning sideways by leaning away from the edge.
When I was in college I was a counselor for an elementary camp at Pine Canyon camp. Our own Joyce Thornton was the dean. One day we were having a Jr. Olympics as a way of building community in our “Family Groups.”
My cabin of boys was paired with a cabin of girls to make up our “Family Group.” We were competing relay fashion against another family group in a “wheel barrel race.” You’ve probably seen these or even participated in one. One person holds onto another person’s feet and they move forward on their hands.
Today we are looking at Jesus as the Lamb, the Shepherd our salvation and our God! The scripture I am working from today is one of great hope and encouragement written during one of the most trying times of Christian history.
I want to begin with a short video that will help us explore these themes, that takes us from Jesus birth and its announcement by the angels, to his sacrifice on the cross as the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
Most of us have come across a funny sign in a curio shop that says, “Lost dog: three legs, missing left ear, broken tail, blind in one eye, recently ‘fixed’, answers to the name of “Lucky”.
In our scripture today we could also see a “Lost Disciple” sign that would say, “Lost disciple: tends to brag, will deny you under pressure, when given a mission, message, power and peace will go fishing instead, works naked, impetuous, will throw himself into a lake, answers to the name of Peter—the Rock”.
Amazing Grace Sunday, April 11, 2010
"Blessed Are You!"
Today is “Amazing Grace Sunday” here at Christ Church in case you haven’t figured that out already. The grace of God and in fact “grace” itself is hard to figure out as you will see from the following on the street interviews. To understand “grace” it seems like you have to experience it through another.
In our scripture story today the disciples experience the “grace of God,” and Thomas in particular has an amazing experience of the forgiveness and grace of God.
‘9 For in him (Jesus) the whole fullness of deity (God) dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12 and you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.
Tonight we are here to help you remember. We want to give you an opportunity to imagine that you were there the night in which Jesus was betrayed. Tonight as you can see we are reenacting Leonardo Da Vinci’s image of what the “Upper Room” looked like. We are in costume in a darkened Upper Room.
In Jesus’ day the scriptures were read while standing up and the word was preached or taught by the Rabbi while sitting down. Tonight I will remain seated, not on the floor and cushions as Jesus would have but here at this table that is set and ready for you.
Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Did you hear yourselves?
Did you hear what you just said?
It’s true. You and I, we crucified him.
You and I, our sins lead to his death.
(In the second service today we are having a “Passion Play” in which the congregation plays the part of the crowd in story. At one point we will cry out together, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”)
The first time I was involved in a Passion Worship Service like this and with the crowd, the congregation shouted, “Crucify Him!” I could hardly get the words out of my mouth. The horror of shouting those words about my Lord was followed by the denial that I had anything to do with it, but I did and so do you.
I want you to think for a moment about how much you make in a year. It could be $300, it could be $12,000, 25,000, 50,000 100,000.
Whatever it is, think about that sum and imagine going out and buying a 12 ounce bottle of perfume that cost that much money.
In Jesus day a pound was 12 oz, not 16 oz. like today.
Imagine you’ve taken a year’s worth of your blood, sweat and tears, a years worth of putting up with your boss, putting up with your clients, getting up early, the stress and the worry, into a 12 ounce bottle of perfume.
There is it in your hands, worth more than gold/ounce! You can keep it, sell it, use it or pour it out to waste it away. It’s yours. What will you do with it?
Philippians 3:17-4:1
March 14, 2010
"Enemies of the Cross
"
I want to begin today by telling you about a friend of mine the Rev. Nate Holt. He has gone on to Glory now but he told me a very memorable story. For years he had what is called a “trigger finger”. His ring finger on his right hand was almost permanently locked sticking straight out from his hand. Something like this (show them).
Anyway, often assigned to him as associate pastors, were new young preachers that were learning to preach. Rev. Holt had a great preaching style. He delivered his sermons without notes and his prayers were often as long as his sermons. Rev. Holt could not preach without using his hand and his trigger finger could be seen by all as he preached.
Well one day one of the young pastors he was mentoring it was his day to preach. This young man adored Rev. Holt and wanted to emulate him in everyway in his preaching so that when he stood up to preach he stuck his arms up in the air as Rev. Holt did and then bent his finger just like him.
An earthquake in Chile leaves at least 800 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. The earthquake in Haiti left hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless.
Was Pat Robertson right? Was the Haitian earthquake because the Haitian people were sinners? “No!” Jesus would say from our scripture today but add, “But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
The day I wrote this message, the paper ran a story that in Iraq 31 people were killed by suicide bombers in attacks on a hospital and police stations. Did God single out these people because of their sin? Were they more guilty than others? “No!” Jesus would say from our scripture today but add, “But unless you repent, you too will perish.”
Matthew 6; 1-6
Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010
"Fasting for 40"
One of the most useful books I had when I was a youth pastor was “Food for 50”. I went through 3 or 4 copies of that book using some until their hardback covers were worn out. We averaged 50 on Sunday nights for most of my career except on service project nights, which was why it was so helpful.
Anyway, the title of that book inspired the title of my meditation tonight. Lent is a call to fasting for 40 days. Now if you look at the calendar and start counting days you will realize that Lent is actually 46 days long because the “Sundays” of Lent are not counted each one being considered a “mini-Easter.”
How many of you remember learning to swim as a child? I do. It was the first class I ever failed. I remembered that there was no way the instructor was going to get me to let go of the wall and swim out into the deep end. I had to take the class over again before I passed.
I eventually wound up swimming year round through high school and all summer long through Jr. High. I was a good swimmer but deep water always held my respect and really deep water even fear.
In Jesus day the Abyss, the sea was always seen as a place of fear and chaos. It was believed that evil resided there and it was a place of monsters. In Revelation the “sea” disappears in the New Heaven and New Earth because it was where the Beast came from and the place where evil hid.
I know I have told this story before but its power like the Gospel’s never fades. In West Texas there were two friends, one of whom worked in the oil fields as a “roughneck”. That is hard, dirty and dangerous work. Well this “roughneck’s” friend had a son die very unexpectedly and suddenly.
The roughneck heard about it while he was out in the field, and as dirty and tired as he was, he drove over to be with his friend. When he got there, the roughneck really did not know what to say. No one really does in circumstances such as that; so he simply said, “I don’t know what to say but I hope my being here matters.”
Today I want to talk about how our presence with one another really does matter in the journey of life. I want to talk about the presence of the Lord being with us always to strengthen us for what ever we face.
Last week we saw how God’s call came to Jesus in the midst of a party through the words of his mom and friends. We looked at how God’s call often comes to us in the same way. This week we are looking at how God’s call comes to us in scripture. We see in our scripture today how Jesus claimed these verses of Isaiah as pertaining to him. We also know since we are Jesus’ body here on earth these verses of calling pertain to us too.
It is my intent and purpose today to help you who call Christ Church United Methodist your church home to claim your calling in our scripture today and with courage live it out in the community that surrounds us. I want to inspire you with the thought that God has a claim on and purpose for your life right here, right now.
I want you to repeat after me, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
Now I want you to say it again with me and claim it in your heart, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me!”
Modern cell phones are amazing! You can program them so that they will give a different ring tone for different people, so that just by the first few notes of the ring you will know who is calling. A friend of mine has his phone programmed so that when I call, his phone “quacks” like a duck. You might say I quack him up!
Or you can program in the numbers and names so that when the phone rings, the name of the person calling is displayed and you can answer them by name or just let it go to voice mail.
Oh, that we could be so sure when the call of God comes into our lives!
The book of Revelation can be seen as a vision telling the end or the “completion” of the story of God’s work here on this earth and in this universe. As you remember from the book of Genesis God created the earth in a series of 7 events called days. You might think that the 7th day was not a day of creation, but that was the day that God created rest and implied that we take a rest once a week too. This is something he later made explicit in the 10 commandments.
In the Bible the number 7 is the number of “completion”. Numerology was very important to the writers and early readers of the Bible. So God creating the world in 7 days was a way of the writers saying God completed this world all by himself. He didn’t need anyone else’s help. He needed no other god. And when God was done what he made was complete and it was good.
Early in December I had and idea for a short sermon series for right after Christmas. The first in the series I called “After Christmas”, which dealt with “wisdom” and growing in it. The second is today and it is called “After Death” and it deals with what happens to Christians immediately after death, and the third which is next Sunday is called “After Life” and it deals with what Heaven and the New Heaven and Earth will be like.
Now this is more of a doctrinal of teaching sermon than anything else. I want to give you a clear snap-shot of an important teaching of the Christian faith that is often times overlooked. Now this sermon is based on 13 week long Bible Study I have been leading on Wednesday nights called “Heaven—Better by Far.”
It seems every year people complain about Jesus being lost in the Christmas celebrations. But some lament like me that Jesus isn’t so much lost in Christmas as he is lost after the season. We celebrate so much the baby Jesus lying in the manger that we forget he did grow up and all the significance of Jesus the baby is found not in his birth, but in his death for all our sins and his resurrection to new life.
And in between Jesus birth and his death and resurrection he did a whole lot of teaching and modeling what it was like to be holy man, a true human being of God here on earth.
John 6:56-59
August 23rd, 2009
"Thanksgiving—The Eucharist"
In last week’s message I spoke about how Jesus in these verses claimed to be God using a metaphor from the animal sacrificial system of his day.
Last week I said, “The metaphor Jesus was using of eating his flesh was “quite normal to anyone brought up in ancient sacrifice. The animal was seldom burned in its entirety. Usually only a token part was burned on the altar, although the entire animal was offered to the god. Part of the flesh was given to the priests as their ‘perk’, and part to the worshippers to make a feast for themselves and their friends within the temple precincts.”
Today, we continue on with our study of John Chapter 6. In our scripture today we see three major allusions. The first allusion we see is to Jesus’ death in verse 51 when he says, “the bread that I will GIVE for the life of the WORLD is my flesh.” This recalls to our memories John 3:16, “God so loved the WORLD that he GAVE his only Son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
There is also a strong allusion to the sacrament of Holy Communion in verse 54 which says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;”
And finally there is also an allusion to Jesus as the “Word become flesh,” “the Living Bread.” Jesus' divinity is strongly affirmed here.
At my former church there was a drug and alcohol rehab place right next door. At any given time there were 45 or more men in recovery living in this facility. It was called “The House Inc.” It was an excellent program and this facility was one of 7 they owned and those first entering the program started there.
Within a half mile circle around the church there were more than 400 men and women in recovery. So, as you might guess many wound up in our church and involved in our ministries. I worked with several in the youth program as counselors and several played in our Contemporary band.
Our relationship with the House was so good that when we found the loaner Master key to our church was missing we would walk over next door and pick it up off the desk in their office.
John 6: 24-35
August 2nd, 2009
“The Bread of Life”
1 Corinthians 11:28 tells us to “examine ourselves before we eat or drink of the bread and the cup.”
Basically, we need to examine our hearts, our minds and our lives before we take the sacrament of Holy Communion. We need to confess where there is sin and then change through the power of the Holy Spirit our lives and thoughts as God directs.
So today, through, our Gospel lesson from John, I hope to help us all examine our lives.
The question this Scripture asks is “What are you feeding your soul on?”
The setting of our Scripture today is important to helping us understand it. Our story today takes place the day after Jesus fed the 5000 with 5 small loaves and 2 fish. He departed the area of that miracle overnight and walked on water to get to the boat His disciples were in. The well fed crowd followed Him the next day and that’s where we pick up the story in verse 24.
John 6:1-15
July 26th, 2009
"Loaves and Fishes or Hearts and Lives?"
Today we are looking at the miracle of the feeding of the 5000. This story follows last week’s gospel lesson from Mark. All four of the Gospels contain this story.
Jesus and his disciples got into a boat and crossed the Sea of Galilee and on land a large crowd followed them. Across the water it was only about a 4 mile sail. On land it was a 9 mile hike to where they wound up in the region of Bethsaida.
The place where Jesus stopped and addressed the crowd was a hill that had a large grassy area on which the people eventually sat. It again could be described as a “deserted place” or “wilderness”.
Verse 4 lets us know it was near the Passover time, which meant there were many Jews on pilgrimage to Jerusalem that would have joined those walking on the shore to see Jesus.
Mark 6:30-34; 53-56
July 19th, 2009
"The Compassion of the Lord"
Today I am going to be talking about the Compassion of the Lord and in our scripture we can see it demonstrated to three groups of people: first to the tired Apostles, second to those who were lost in ignorance and finally to the sick.
Frederick Buechner has a quote that “goes something like this: “A bleeding heart is of no use to anyone at all if it bleeds itself to death.” (D.P.S.) Barbara Brown Taylor says, “Sabbath is a gift, but we are so reluctant to accept it, that God had to make it a command.” (D.P.S.)
We all need rest. The servants of the Lord need rest and often some of the most compassionate are reluctant to take it, but if we don’t, we end up burned out and of no use to anyone.
Now as you can see by the attendance here today not everyone who serves the Lord is reluctant to take their Sabbath Rest here in the summer time, but for many it is a problem.
Psalm 34:19
July 5th, 2009
"It is Well With My Soul"
The hymns and songs we sing at church they hold and express our hopes and dreams, they give voice to our praise and thanksgiving.
They contain and give voice to our beliefs. They are our theology. They encourage us and give us strength and comfort in time of trial and sorrow.
One of the things the worship staff noted as we reviewed the 120+ hymn and song requests for this Sunday was how many of them gave voice to the desire for “Assurance”; assurance of God’s love, assurance of God’s presence and assurance of our eternal destination in the Kingdom of Heaven.
At times these hymns and songs, we sing them with great faith and hope, at other times we sing them holding desperately to the promises they hold. They meet our needs in times of great joy and great sorrow.
Such a hymn is the one I am going to speak to today. It is based on the knowledge that the righteous suffer too. It is also based on the words of the Shunammite woman from 2 Kings 4:26 who when asked how she was replied to Elisha’s servant, “It is well” even though her heart was breaking over the death of her son.
John 15:26-27, 6:4b-15
May 31st, 2009
"The Holy Spirit"
Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. In our Acts reading we heard the actual events of the birth of the Church. In our reading from John, we heard the prophecy of that day.
In these two stories we find ourselves and the call to wholehearted participation in the Church and the call to testify on Jesus’ behalf.
From the Acts reading I want us to keep three things in mind in terms of the work of the Holy Spirit.
I want to begin this message by saying that love is not easy. In many cases it is not natural to our inclinations. If it were easy and natural to us Jesus would not have to “command us to love one another.”
Recently this became very obvious to me as I was listening to writer and speaker Dennis Prager when he said, ‘The 10 commandments were given to us as a means of us countering our human nature. Human nature when left to itself would break all 10 commandments.’ Dennis Prager is a practicing Jew and leads many studies on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament that include the ten commandments.
The more I contemplated this message the more I realized I had picked an unfortunate title. I should have titled it “Abide” rather than “Pruned”. The latter title had connotations of a Metamucil commercial.
Well after abiding in the scripture for awhile I realized that Jesus used the word “Abide” or reference to it 9 times!
Being “pruned” is a result of “abiding” with Jesus. The “abiding” leads to “pruning” and not the other way around. And the word in Greek that is translated “pruned” also has the connotations of cleansing and healing, which sound much more positive than pruned.
Last week’s message was a more general approach to witnessing and this week I want to make it more personal. Last week I spoke about why and how the vow “to witness” was added to our membership vows. Today I will try to help you see how this applies to your personal life.
This is based on verse 48 of our scripture where Jesus said, “You are witnesses of these things.” Remember only those in that Upper Room and those that saw Jesus from his resurrection to his ascension could be “witnesses” in the sense of “eyewitnesses”.
Today we are talking about being witnesses for Jesus Christ. I am going to help us understand this through the lens of our Methodist heritage as well as the new addition to our Membership Vows: the vow of “witness”.
This is being added to “Prayers, presence, gifts and service,” but first a story.
“On the way to preschool to drop her daughter off, a doctor had left her stethoscope on the car seat. Her little girl picked it up and began playing with it.
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
April 19th 2009
"Perfected in Weakness"
Today we are going to be talking about the Grace of God. We can define it in our heads but sometimes it is like Paul said in our scripture “I heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.” Grace is sometimes beyond what we can understand. It is something that needs to be experienced. It is something that needs to go from our heads to our hearts. As one man said, “We can define it in our heads but do we know it in our hearts?”
Do we know the Grace of God in our hearts and live it in our lives?
In our scripture, Paul tells about two experiences he had. One would be called a rapture or translation into heaven. He tells this story in the 3rd person, so at first you don’t know that he is talking about himself, but he is making the point to his opponents, who are claiming greater visions and spiritual experiences than him, that his visions are even better.
Mark 16:1-8
Easter Sunday April 12th 2009
"Resurrected"
A story is told about a Private Christian School teacher asking her class the week before Easter if they knew what happened on Easter and what did it mean? She knew many of the children were in this school because of its high academic standards and not necessarily because they came from Christian families.
So one little girl spoke up and said, “Easter is when the whole family gets together and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that.”
“No, that’s not it,” said the teacher.
“I know” said a second student, “It’s when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs.”
Mark 15:33-39
Palm Sunday April 5th 2009
"Extravagant Generosity"
A story is told about how, “One afternoon a bus driver was taking 40 children home from school. As the bus made its way down a steep grade, the brakes failed. The driver was unable to steer the bus to the left because of a high embankment or to the right because of a steep cliff.
As the bus hurtled down the hill, the driver recalled that there was a narrow gate at the bottom which led into a soft grassy field. He decided to steer the bus through the gate and into the field, figuring that it would eventually come to a safe stop. He hoped that no cars or other obstacles would get in his way before he got to the gate.
