audio

Paying close attention to the effect certain activities are having on one’s passion for God…and making the adjustments. That requires self-discipline. Man, I dislike how that word sounds, but I really like the results of practicing the reality.

audio

Below: Making Tamahagane for a samurai sword.

audio

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea
‘Twas not so much that I on Thee took hold
as Thou, dear Lord, on me

–Menno Red Hymnal #228, verse 2

Olive Hope, The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

May the power and the blood of Jesus wash over your little body. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would surround Olive with the protective cushion of Your Spirit. I pray that you would wash healing all over her body, around her cells, through her organs, through her brain cells, renewing and restoring. Lord, restore the damage that has been happened with bleeding. Take it away and replace it with cells that are new, that are uninjured. Protect her body from bleeding – keep her cells tight and whole and immune to damage. Keep her from infection. Keep her vital signs stable. Protect her eyes. Protect her vision. I pray that her vision would be restored, and she will be able to look into the eyes of her mommy and see her. Wrap this little being in your presence, around and around with protection, comfort, and healing. Let the power of your kingdom be evident in her tiny body. Jesus. Mend Olive. Make her whole. Restore and protect her. Let her hear her mommy and daddy’s voice even when they are not with her. Let her rest and heal. Give Lynette and Rusty the strength and endurance they need. Give them words to pray, songs to sing. Hear the cries of our heart, Lord. Turn our tears into tears of rejoicing. Give Lynette and Rusty restorative sleep.

In the name of Jesus who died for us and brought us life and the light of your kingdom here on earth,

Amen.

listen

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.  (Gal 4:6-7 ESV)

*Update: Mahaney on adoption.

sermon audio

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

(Matthew 9:12-13 NIV)

audio

audio

notes

“Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously “? (James 4:5 NKJ)

audio

Matt 10:8-10 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.

• Jesus didn’t give the disciples an assignment they could handle with human resources and human resourcefulness.

Read the notes.

mp3

Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for WHATEVER the Father does, the Son does likewise.”  (John 5:19)

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”  (John 10:27)

“You can carry the measure of His Presence that you’re willing to jealously guard.”  - Bill Johnson

A Few Practical Tips on Hearing

1. Stop and Listen:  We hear God speak to me most frequently when we take time to stop and listen.  In times of practicing His Presence: worship, prayer…Maybe pray Samuel’s boyhood prayer – “Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.”  (1 Sam 3:10)
2. Journal: I find it helpful to journal what I think God is saying.  It becomes very precious and like a compass later on – often moreso than right at first.
3. Test it (in trusted community).
   • Is it biblical?  (Does it fit with Scriptural teaching?)
   • Does it have the ring of truth?  (Does it smell right?)
   • Is it apt?  (Does it apply some biblical truth to this situation in a fitting way?)

Gotcha Merle.

Most all consumers feel like they have the right to be a critic. No one is dying to be a part of any group of people where there’s a lot of criticism going on.

-Christy Wimber

Read the whole article here.

mp3

We ended the message with The O.C. Supertones’ “Away from You.”

Expect a lot of videos from me in the future.

I wish everybody would read this article.

mp3

[I want to give a hat tip to Kris Vallotton for a recent sermon he shared that was apparently inspired by Malcolm Gadwell's book, The Tipping Point.  In that message he spoke about Roger Bannister and as I listened to that particular point (while driving from Ohio to Virginia) my spirit was stirred and I knew what I was going to preach come Sunday.]

1. 1. Intro – 4 Minute Mile and Roger Bannister
2. Burning Bushes:  Exodus 3 – My friend (AMS).  Father-in-law.
3. Jesus Christ is Perfect Theology – He’s the pattern of human life we’re meant to follow.  He takes us into His relationship with the Father and the Spirit.  He saved us from something, but also to something.  You want to know what He saved us to?  Read the Gospels!  He’s the pattern!  He’s the Roger Bannister par excellence of humanity.  He said we’d do greater things than he did since he returned to the Father and poured out God’s Spirit on his people.
4. The Impossible Mission – Matt 10, The Harsh Rebuke Matt 17
5. Resurrection DNA – What part of the Christian life is even possible?  We can’t even be saved apart from a miracle.  Eph 2 says we were dead in transgressions…not weak and sick.  Dead.
6. Pre-Pentecost Disciples Live at a Higher Level than Us? How can this be?  My answer – wrong thinking. Limitations we put on ourselves so that we don’t walk in the authority Jesus gave us, and expects us to use.
7. Bad Theology – When we alleviate the tension between what Scriptures says and what we experience by arguments crafted to help leave us comfortably where we are rather than motivating us to find what’s missing in order to close that gap.
8. It’s time to grow up into childlike faith
9. John Wimber – Marriage trouble, home group, healing, read bible, asked pastor a question:  “When are we going to do the stuff?”  Didn’t like the answer.  Pressed in.  100 prayers before he finally saw Jesus do a healing by his own hands.
10. Heidi Baker – Prayed for 20 blind people before one was healed.
11. Big idea: We can live at a whole different level than what is “normal.”  Jesus demonstrates a new normal.  Jesus lived it, the early church followed him, saints from all walks of life and all times have grasped God … and so can we.  Whole generations can forget who God is – as happened so many times in OT history.  The thinking goes wrong – we begin to believe lies and that gets us corporately stuck far below the level that God has already told us is His version of normal.  But in such times where the knowledge of God is just embers often all it takes is one person to be a living demonstration of what God can do to reveal the lies that keep the many bound.  One person’s private victory with God can serve as the catalyst to release whole communities into a higher gear of relationship with God.
12. Personal Victory – Corporate Blessing: Let’s go back to David again.  The lions and bears were private victories, but they led the way to Goliath, which was a corporate victory.  We’ve got to be seeking God in private, developing a personal history with God and seeking our private victory.
13. The Mess creates the Message, Your Weakness becomes your Ministry – The thing that is your greatest struggle – when you solve that, when you press into God in such a way that you find His grace breaking you free – then that’s going to be a little piece of land on which you plant your feet and believe God for others.  God wants us to minister out of our hearts, not just our heads.  And so do people.
14. The coattails of another’s win.  Crows drop nuts into traffic to let the cars do the hard work of breaking the shells.  All it takes is one crow to try it – others see, and then it’s off to the races.  Ideally, they teach their young…All it takes is one person to find a breakthrough in God – a win in joy, mastery of some plaguing sin, healing of some deep wound, a new understanding of who you are because of Jesus – all it takes is one person to so carry the Presence of God that they become a burning  bush.
15. Nazareth Principle – And then anyone who is willing to receive it for what it really is – is off to the races.  If I can receive the treasure in the clay jar then your victory  becomes my victory – I get what you prayed for.  And if we have a grace culture, one person’s private victory can activate a seachange in all of our thinking and praying and living.
16. It only takes one – this is my conclusion – I thought that this message is probably going to miss most folks at cannon – but decided to preach it anyway, because not preaching it for these reasons would mean I don’t believe that a move of God can be catalyzed by just one…that Marty Miller’s Ford Mustang 5 Liter engine can be awakened by a spark.  Jesus said mustard seed sized faith will awaken the Almighty’s power.  All it takes is one person who will believe God.  One person who will pray when no prayer meeting is called, and nobody is watching.  One person who will respond to Jesus by rejecting bitterness and opting for forgiveness and kindness.  One person who will say, “This ends here” to despair or sin or some pattern that’s kept them stuck for years…One person to rise up in faith that God really has given me everything I need to do his will.  One person to live beyond the limitations of family history – to be the anomaly – the counter-example, the burning bush that should be destroyed, but instead becomes the contact point between heaven and earth.

Tights are not pants…

http://www.tightsarenotpants.com/manifesto

mp3

pdf full notes

1. Be active, not passive
2. Support the leadership
3. Own it
4. Be real
5. Move through the stages of maturation
6. Remember, the church is not an institution – it’s people
7. Time, Treasure, Talent

mp3

Our young people shared this morning their very impacting experience at the Send House in Columbus last week.  Regina Yutzy posted some pics of the whole shindig.

Buy it here.

mp3

I heard a crazy stat recently: The average American somehow finds time to watch 35 hours of tv per week.  That can’t be!  If that’s an average…somebody is not doing much else.

I’m not opposed to television or movies. I love stories! I think we all do. But I found Dr. Piper’s views interesting and challenging. I definitely agree about the danger of viewing sexually provocative material – especially for men who seem to be so visuallywired sexually.  One pushback is this:  Critiquing film is like critiquing talking or print – the message is the critical issue, not the medium.  With that in mind…

Give it a read and tell me what you think.

Here’s the link.

mp3

1.) We all have to face our fears to become the person Christ made us to be.
2.) Our Goliath is unique to us, and so is our God-given weaponry.
3.) Momentum is Socially Transferred, for good or bad.  We can en-courage or dis-courage others by strengthening their faith or unbelief.
4.) Lions and Bears come before the Giants…We build courage on the foundation of previous obedience to do the scary but right thing.
5.) Three Agents of Dis-Couragement: I.) Threats – Goliath II.) Criticism: Eliab III.) Naysaying: Saul
6.) The Spirit, Faith, and Courage are Connected.
7.) Faith moves mountains…and makes martyrs (Hebrews 11).
8.) The Lord Saves. Yeshua. Jesus. The Battle Belongs to the Lord.
9.) The Ultimate Courage: The Courage to Love.

mp3

The reason I want to be careful about the question at the end of the message is that my question may imply that God did a better job fathering David than Saul.  This implies that Saul’s unfaithfulness may somehow be God’s fault – which is clearly wrong.  Upon further reflection, it actually seems like the tests that Saul failed were probably his God-ordained trials intended to shape and incline his heart Godward.

Also, David’s faith and heart for God weren’t necessarily born in the places of pain (he had them at an early age!), but they were surely strengthened and matured in those times because of his responsiveness to God in and through them.  And it wasn’t a youthful arrogance that needed to be broken – his bold faith didn’t need subtraction, but rather addition.  Perhaps God was adding a kind of softness and mercy.  This reminds me of what Peter exhorts…

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.   4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;  6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;  7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

(2Pe 1:3-7 NIV)

Final point: David repents well.  He trembles at God’s word.  He’s able to see God’s mercy and thus fall in love with God even more deeply after he’s sinned.  This is helpful for me in my New Covenant vantage point where mercy shines so much more brightly.  I fail so often, but in the mercy of God it gives me a new vantage point to receive the forgiveness Christ purchased with his blood, and to experience afresh my total dependence on Jesus’ surprising love for me…

Thoughts?

pdf

mp3

I am greatly indebted to Pastor Mark Driscoll for the categories of Positive, Negative, and Neutral that appear in this message. I also leaned on Pastor Bill Johnson and John Bevere for insights into the biblical principle of honor.

“We have somehow got hold of the idea that error is only that which is outrageously wrong; and we do not seem to understand that the most dangerous person of all is the one who does not emphasize the right things.”

–D. M. Lloyd-Jones

audio

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands:

2 “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false.  3 I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary.

4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

5 Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

6 Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  7 Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.”

(Rev 2:1-7 NRSV)

audio

notes

The Apostolic Perspective

1. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the interpretive key to understanding the incarnation, life and ministry of Jesus.
2. The story of Jesus understood as cross-centered (Cruciform) is the interpretive key to understanding the whole OT story of the cosmos, and especially, the covenantal history of Israel.
3. All other questions and concerns on secondary or tertiary issues ought to be understood in proper relationship to this Gospel core.

Thanks to Dr. Lester Ruth, of Asbury Theological Seminary, for the kernel of thought that forms the basis of this message.  His class on worship was one of the brightest spots of my time in seminary.  Thank you sir for your rich teaching.

At the end of the message, the team did this drama for us.  Thank you so very much!  I wanted to get up and shout “That’s my Jesus!  He did that for me!”

audio

Scriptures

audio

my notes

audio

Tim’s Preaching Notes

Outline

• Routines: we’ve all got em’.
• Change is a fact of life.  It’s also value-neutral, neither good nor bad in itself.
• What happens in the brain when we face change?
• What happens emotionally in times of change?
• What often happens during pastoral transitions?
• Two tendencies amidst change: push for what I want/grasp for what I don’t want to lose.
• What’s Satan’s agenda in churches during times of change?
• Even good changes create stress.
• Exegesis of Matthew 9:14-17
• Three areas for new wineskins
  • Self-care
  • Extra Grace for others
  • Don’t lose focus on what matters most
• Let go of what’s in your hand
• Jesus’ agenda:  John 13:35  ”By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

audio

This Nascar race wasn’t it.  The greatest champagne spraying, shouting, dancing moment of victory in the history of the universe was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Christ is risen!

Jesus rose victorious (and shared his victory with us) over:

1. Satan
2. Sin
3. Hell
4. Death
5. The Wrath of God

Because Christ is risen we get to enjoy every good and perfect gift and every spiritual blessing…

Alleluia!  What a glorious Savior!

sermon audio

congregational sharing

Tim’s preaching notes

This season’s fruit is from last season’s struggle.  This season’s struggle is for next season’s fruit.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.  He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

Maybe the hammer and the anvil (life’s difficulties) are providential friends, and the Holy Spirit is the fire – the presence of Christ in us – that makes us malleable to what the Father is trying to do in us to make us reliable instruments in the Redeemer’s hands…

But most of all, He’s the goal.  We have a job to do, but the main point of all of this is knowing Him.