Tonight we welcomed the folks from Stony Creek's Youth Ministry "The Edge."
We had an awesome time of worship where you could the group singing from every room in the church. It was great piece of encouragement for our teens.
It's hard to know exactly how to sum up the sermon notes so I've decided to post all of my notes here. You should be able to piece together what happened.
The basic idea however, is how we're all called to be priests or pastors. But instead we usually treat life like we're called to have a job. The application is to look at our lives and move according to our calling not just our education or our careers.
Here are the notes.
(origins from Rob Bell)
US*
We want to talk about who we really are as human beings at the deepest levels.
Mark 2:23-26
Haven’t you guys read the Bible?
Haven’t you read the stories about David?
And the stories about David were the stories.
They were hungry and they broke the religious rules…
Who were his Companions?
They were known for some specific things
They weren’t called just companions… they were called “mighty men”
1 Chronicles 11:10 - 14
Get a good name don’t just be Gary from Tulsa.
v.20
v.22
awesome!!!
v.23,24
This Chronicler is telling this story in kind of an epic rhythm
So when it says “David and his companions” to a good Jewish disciple.. Jesus’ disciples are like “those are the mighty guys” that’s the guy who went down into a pit on a snowy day…
Cause when I kill lions on a snowy day.. much harder. ;)
Back to Jesus
Like eating grape nuts without milk
Dude… you’re so busted when you get home.
But Jesus says “are you still sticking with your own old interpretation of the torah?”
So Jesus relates himself in the story to the what figure? David
Which means he’s likening his disciples to who? The mighty men
So these pre-pubescent boys are hearing this are like
“yeeeah, I could take out a lion if I had to”
So if you’re one of His disciples how empowering would that be?
John 14
Be careful if you follow Jesus, because He has a rather high view of humanity, Jesus believes that people are capable of greatness.
- talks about when he is going to ascend to the father
v.12
So you have to understand that you’re seeing this and your kind of amazed with these signs “my followers are not only going to do these things, but my followers will do things far greater than anything you are seeing me do.”
Be very very careful if you follow this Jesus, because he will pull out of you the simple truth that he has faith in people. Jesus believes his disciples are capable of greatness.
Exodus 19
The Ten Commandments are meant to save the whole world.
They are essentially a relationship agreement.
This is God saying
- “This is how you’re going to live in harmony with each other.
- God is looking for a group of people who will be God, be the presence of God, be the hands and feet, be the incarnation of the divine to the world. To bring about the healing and caring of the world.
And God says he’s about to give this covenant, this relationship to them
v.5-6
a priest simply shows the divine, a holy nation (meaning set apart). Your task is to show the world God
- by your actions
- by your speech
- by the way you live and move
God says “I’ve chosen you to show the world, to save the world, you’re the instrument through which I want to do this.”
So the commandments are… ok here’s how we’re going to do this.
20:18-21
This is the calling of humanity, to show the world God,
And when God calls them to the task, believing that they’re up to it….
But the people remained at a distance.
I would argue that this is talking about geography, but that it also works as a metaphor as well.
That we have been called to a divine task
That there’s something within us that tells us to stand at a distance.
- God you don’t know what I’ve done
- You don’t know who I’ve been with
- I don’t have the skills that that person has
- I didn’t grow up religious so I’m just kind of clueless to all of this
And with all the ways that we have been called there is something bent within our sin condition that even though we are called to be priests or “God showers” to the world, we don’t move.
Ephesians 4
Moses questioned just like we do “who am I” but the first Christians are constantly calling people back to the divine saying “come back come back”
v.11
The purpose of those leaders v. 12
Is to equip his people….
That’s some seriously big words, but here’s the idea
“that church would be the kind of gathering and the kind of people that when you are with them or that when you observe them, or you in some way ended up working with them, you would say ‘I saw Jesus’ that’s what Jesus is like.
I can tell you what Jesus is like because I have seen His body at work”.
That’s the whole measure of Christ part.
The leaders are to equip his people (the word people is “saints” or haugious in greek) for works of service (the word there is diakuhnoid… its where we get the word ministry or to minister).
The only reason a church has ministers is to equip and prepare the people (that’s us) to do ministry.
we believe that everybody is a minister.
We believe that if ministers aren’t equipping and pulling out of people their sacred calling than the leadership has failed.
So this scripture raises the bar on what it is to be a Christian, but it also raises the bar for a leader.
Every leader is to
- equip
- empower
- and let loose the body to be ministers
The scriptures take this much much further, because they insist that every believer is a minister
1 Peter 2
v.9
When you do communion is it done with a priest standing with a priest, or are you serving it to each other?
- We actually believe that the body and blood can be handled by every day people.
- That means that you are theologically no different that any other priest in full garb.
- That every one of us has a priest hidden inside of us that God wants to evoke so that you can bring the divine into the world.
There are so many great organizations out there that work in
- urban renewal
- the HIV/aids pandemic
- the homeless cause
- the make poverty history campaign
- the one campaign
lots and lots of great organizations, and they do very specific experts who work for them.
And very often what happens is that the church ends up writing checks to fund these agencies.
We bless these organizations and we love them, but why do they exist?
I would argue that the only reason these agencies exist is because the church didn’t do the job that Jesus gave the church to do
Let’s play the word association game
1. Seminary Student
a. Cause you immediately radical revolutionary
2. Church budget meeting
a. Oh hold me down
3. Church membership
a. Just revolution just washes over me
No, you’re bored out of your mind.
And I would argue for many people they say “if you want to change the world go join one of these agencies.”
(Urban renewal program)
“can the church be converted to help the great cause of our day”
“No, churches are all about themselves”
They might write a check now and then…
My question “why do the agencies get to have all the fun”
I don’t want to miss out
Why would we write checks to do when we have people sitting right here who can do amazing things right now.
Can we pull out the passions and abilities within the people sitting right here to do something about it?
What if church budget meetings became “oh I am there, if we can pull a little bit of money from over here we can save 10 more lives.”
What if the church could be converted to Jesus?
If you had a couple of thousand priests like that in one place, the earth would tremble from its weight.
That’s why I take issue with the word missionary.
Why do some people get to be missionaries and others don’t?
Aren’t we all missionaries?
I thought it was the priesthood of all believers.
What if there were a church that committed to something bigger than its own goods and services
What if you saw the way they treated each other that you said “That’s what Jesus had in mind”
What if there was such an overwhelming movement of good to where “I could say a lot of things, but that’s Jesus”
What if every person in this room had a friend who was poor?
What if in year from now when I say poor you had a name and face?
It would change everything.
What if when we said poverty, every person in this room had a name and face?
Well you wouldn’t let that person drown. It would change everything.
A couple hundred priests not standing at a distance, this area would tremble.
