The Peacemaker

The Peacemaker

(from Rob Bell's Leaving Ignorance for Awareness)

Judges 15: 1-11

Did you notice how this started so simply and all of a sudden it was 3,000 men.

1. what they each do is demonize the other person.

a. A person stuck in this pattern can’t say “maybe I had something to do with this.

b. The pattern always leads to something worst

2. They have the excuse – “this is just how the world is”

a. It’s un-creative

The Myth of Redemptive Violence.

“The world is made better through acts of violence”

“Popeye”

“in a typical segment, Bluto kidnapped a screaming Olive Oil, Popeye girl friend. When Popeye attempts to rescue her the massive bluto beats his opponent to a pulp. At the last moment when our hero oozes to the floor a can of spinach pops from Popeye’s pocket and spills into his mouth. Transformed by this gracious infusion of power, he easily diminishes the villan and rescues his beloved.

The format never varies. Neither party ever gains any insight.

Violence does not teach Bluto to honor Olive Oil’s humanity, and the repeated pummeling’s do not teach Pop-eye to swallow his spinach before the fight.

This myth is everywhere.

No one gets mad at Bruce Willis and says “you d didn’t need to blow up the building.

Matthew 26:47-53

I could do it the world’s way… but I’ve found another way. I’ve come to put an end to the violence.

Haven’t we seen enough

v.54

he came to bring peace

v.55-56

The cross is always personal for us… but Jesus is calling out the whole system and screaming that it’s a lie.

He dies violently, but his hands are clean.

He dies naked, but with dignity.

The cross confronts the whole myth.

Where are all the peacemakers?

The people who say, “no there has to be another way”

Jesus goes to the cross saying “ you can kill me, but some ideas live on”

You can put the cross in the warm fuzzy corner and that’s ok, but the cross is subversive to all of culture.

So when He rises from the dead, he said “this is my son”

What if when things went wrong people said “call in the Christians, because they’ll no how to make peace here.”

Through Jesus God forgives us, but the cross confronts the entire system of the world and screams “there is a new way.”

1. Are you involved in demonizing someone else or tried to make them look bad?

2. Have you ever done something back to somebody because of what they did to you?

Origins Week 3

Origins Week 3

“For the Leaders”

(based on the notes, thoughts, and outline of Erwin McManus' New Origin's Project. Many thanks to the folks at Mosaic for helping push the Christ's dream for the church.)

When I was around 15 years old I got in an argument with one of my teaching Pastor’s. He crushed my argument and at the end of the argument he said, “Is there anything else that you can do and be happy?”

For me? No.

Tonight is about recognizing who we are as a nation and who could be as a people.

Lack of responsibility… maybe church doesn’t always feel “right” to us, because we are missing the idea of God’s dream. And we’re missing the dream because we are too caught up with our own thoughts of what “right” is.

• We have a culture of Christians wanting to be fed.

The “We’re not being fed here” statement.

Question: “What kind of human beings need to be fed? Babies, and people who are mentally incapable of feeding themselves.

1 Corinthians 3:1-4

1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4 For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?

Question: Is it always the job of the parents to feed their kids for the rest of their lives? Of course not! Only at first. But at some point and time the child needs to learn how to feed themselves.

At some point the Child can become a parent on their own and feed others.

The ancient church would grow, and then someday they would leave to plant another church somewhere else. They did that, because they had grown in their faith to a point where they didn’t need the Apostles to tell them everything.

Some Christians never want to take that responsibility.

• My job is not to feed Christians, but make them hungry.
• We don't need to eat, we need to exercise.
• It’s the practice of our faith that grows us, not believing of our faith.
• We teach the Bible on Sunday, but people don't live it out on Monday.
• I’ve been asked a lot about fake Christians. And usually a fake Christian isn’t somebody who simply talks one way and then acts another way.

To me a fake Christian is somebody who has no desire to grow, but they never feel any kind of conviction in their lives, and they base their decisions on the world and not on the word.

We Need Mature Leaders

• Maturity is the gap of time between learning and obedience.

Who’s doing it right? (church bashing)

Anti-catholic, anti-anybody who doesn’t do it how I think it should be done. (pastor needs more jokes, etc)

• Don't beat up on anyone reaching people for Jesus.

Leaders lead with the end in mind, not just the “here” in mind.

The wise recognize that the “here” determines the end and the accept responsibility for themselves… a leader never acts like a victim (just because I was abused, doesn’t mean that I have the excuse to treat others harshly. I know not to do that.)

• I want to be indispensable when I'm here and dispensable when I'm gone.

A Leader has nothing to prove

( and everything to give. And sometimes giving is by supporting others even if I think I could do it better or more efficiently. )

• The power of community is being willing to be led when someone's gifts are stronger than yours in a particular area. At some times, we all need to be a follower.

How can I succeed at my dreams or as a leader?

• The only limit to your effectiveness is the depth of your humility.

If you think you’re the most impressive person in the room, then others will be less impressed with you. It’s those that make others more confident and powerful that make the deepest impact.

(when Bill Clinton walked in to a room everybody was always drawn to them, because no matter how powerful he ever became, he always made his focus about talking about and to others.)

Phil. 2:5-11

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Phil 2:12-13

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Just like people who are over-weight know how to lose it, so do we know how to follow Christ. It's by living out His way of life.

Origins Week 2

Origins Week 2

“Love is the Context of it All”

(based on the notes, thoughts, and outline of Erwin McManus' New Origin's Project. Many thanks to the folks at Mosaic for helping push the Christ's dream for the church.)

They Started Simply

Acts 4:32-37

They Meant Spiritual and Physical Needs

Acts 5:14-16

They Were persecuted (in between every move they made)

They Had to Change to meet needs

Acts 6:1-7

There were Two Kind of leader Types

Eagle Leader

· An eagle leader soars above and has great visions.

Hawk Leader

· A hawk leader swoops down on it's target and is focused.

How we’ve changed over the centuries

· We tend to program what we're not good at.

· It is far more important to change what people care about then what people believe.

- people’s spiritual needs were met first because people of that time saw life as frail. A broken bone= loss of limb. A simple infection was deadly because there were no antibiotics.

-

· We must move from talkers to changers of the course of history.

Are you doing just enough to feel like a Christian?

Origins Part 1

Origins

Part 1

(based on the thoughts and outlines of Erwin McManus’s New Origins Project)

The Ancient Church showed us how to be eternally relevant.

Martha

Luke 10:38-42

-Martha was too busy to be Holy

Doing the Right Thing

Paul calls out the founders of the Church… the guys that Jesus trained screwed up and Paul let them know it.

Galatians 2: 4-14

4 This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. 6 As for those who seemed to be important--whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance--those men added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. 8 For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

Acts 17:16-34

The Right Thing is Never Popular

• Stop caring about what the Peters and Martha’s say, and start carrying the message of Christ.
• God is looking for men and women who will go to the few that are seemingly ignored.
• Look for the background people and you’ll know who God is thinking about right now.
• Paul specifically tailored his message to reach people who had no idea of who Jesus was.
• Everybody needs Christ, but every person has a different language that they speak. You need to know their heart and their language before you can expect to communicate a truth that they’re supposed to give their lives up for.
• When someone enters your community of faith, they also hear your subtext.

What’s louder? Your love and heart for God, our your love and heart for being accepted?

Evolution – “Big Earth…Small Me”

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Evolution – “Big Earth…Small Me”

Somewhere around - 6,590,885,858 live in the world

250000 are born everyday

8.78 deaths per 1,000 people a year. According to our nifty desktop calculator, that works out to roughly 56,597,034 people leaving us every year. That's about a 155,000 a day.

How is it possible that humanity doesn’t overlap? i.e. how can uniqueness exist?

It’s hard to imagine with those kinds of numbers that there are that many unique people out there. How can it be possible for uniqueness to happen on so many people are being born and dying? How can Christians claim that no one have overlapped or been identical with someone else.

The theory of random chance says that the paths or life journeys of billions of people. But to be honest that’s our [Christian’s] world view, that there isn’t anything random out there. We see that there’s purpose and intent that comes from an influence, that of good (justice, peace, community, awe ness) and that of evil (apathy, laziness, malicious motivation).

Henry Ford ruined us…

We see that anything that happens on a mass scale before our eyes is simply a mass production. Sure not ever tire has the exact same amount of air in it, but eventually you could probably find two tire with same amount of air in it to the smallest percentile.

But humanity is different, the earth is different, and it is easily different, because we have never created anything out of nothing, we have never created anything using a fresh idea that is as complex as anything that exists in creation.

That’s because we compare the things that surround us with the things that we create.

I dare you to show me something man made that is more complex in its overall existence and I will show you something that is growing me back yard that is bountifully more impressive and complex.

Show me a massive sky scraper that was built by man, , runs on electricity from a nuclear power pant that is destroying the ozone, and I’ll show you the grass in my backyard that provides nourishment to the trees in my neighborhood, and I’ll tell you how it operates on water that helps the environment, and how I could set it on fire and it would still grow back.

Yet if your sky scraper was burned down, it would never exist again. It would simply be replaced.

Show me the biggest bomb, and I’ll show you a small star called the sun and how it’s producing something around 62 million of your bombs every second.

Progress will never keep up with creation, so stop trying to lesson your value as the most significant creation. And your significance is shown in your beauty and your beauty comes from your uniqueness and your uniqueness comes from your shape.

But your worth comes from something completely different. Imagine just for the sake of argument, that everything that exists outside of the creation of man wasn’t placed where it is by random chance. What if it was placed into creation like notes on page that seems so unwieldy that you can barely comprehend it’s complexity but when you listen to it instead of trying to play it, or when you simply enjoy it instead of trying to pick apart the origin of every sound being made, that you could see a kind of “thought” behind.

And what if whoever or whatever “thought” of that kind of complex symphony had also thought of you. And not only thinks you special, but loves you and thinks that you’re the kind of thing that it would die for.

What would that mean to you?

What it means is exactly why so many Christians have given their lives away for something greater. It’s because they hear the heart of the composer in the melody that surrounds them.

There’s a lot more, but here are some of the pieces that pull all of together in a similar way, but also show us our uniqueness.

S.H.A.P.E. Profile

Spiritual gifts - God gives us special endowments for the building up of the body.

Heart - God uses our natural passions and desires to direct us toward places he wants to use us.

Abilities - Natural talents are resources God wants to use for eternal purposes.

Personality - Our psychological wiring is good, God-given, and important to him.

Experiences - God uses our past...even our past hurts and failures...as ministry tools.

Evolution Week One - "Something Went Wrong"

Evolution Week One - "Something Went Wrong"

Things started out ok…

1. you were born

2. parents weren’t perfect

3. elementary school

a. boys and girls

4. junior high

5. high school (awkward like being in the middle seat of a pick up truck, DON’T GO INTO 4^th GEAR<>

6. college

You have to Marry the love of your life our all of your life will be horrible!

Then there’s the “Life is about having fun…”

So if that’s true, then your sad days feel so wrong that you don’t want to live anymore, because life is about the happy, and if I’m not happy then I shouldn’t be living.

Suicide is still happening...why?

If Evolution as Darwin describes is true, i.e. “The growth or maturation of any stronger living species” is true, then why is humanity killing itself?

You ask me “if God is love, then why is there evil”, but at the same time I could ask you ,if Evolution is true, then why is there still pain, why haven’t we managed to evolve beyond pain, out of a need for survival.”

But war, disease, suicide, and hate are going nowhere fast. If evolution is true, why haven’t we evolved to a place where survival kicks in and we realize that we need each other more than we need money, power, drugs, alcohol, and other stuff.

In fact, all tales of tribal man tell us that at one point in existence we all really were on the same team. Too bad, that didn’t last.

Now we have depression, homework (go on and on)

Ebay, home shopping , facebook, google….

But what if Darwin had it all wrong?

What if we were born to evolve into something ever so much more than common men and women?

What if the creation of us was supposed to really matter more than just who are by ourselves?

What if we weren’t born to have jobs, go to school, have a career, make babies, be grand parents, have careers, and die?

Maybe there’s something hidden inside of us waiting to be explored and teach what humanity is.

And maybe, just maybe there is hope for humanity and comes from something bigger than we can control.

Maybe Humanity is waiting for something to happen. And maybe that something is you.

What does it take to keep a rain forest alive?

Plant life, insects, air, rain.

Take any one of these away and the forest dies. And if the forest dies, then most likely we’ll die.

Pitcher Plant

A plant that draws insects in using necter, but it's outer ridge is too waxy for insects to stand on, so they fall into the bowl of the plant.

From there, something called a "crab spider" goes into the plant using a silk lifeline, and devours part of the bug that fell in, but leaves just enough to keep the pitcher plant alive.

Without this plant, the rain forest wouldn't survive at the same rate of success.

It takes a special plant, that stays alive different from any other plant.

It’s unique, and it’s uniqueness is part of why its beautiful.

We could name hundreds of people who’ve made an impact on our world.

Hundreds of heroes.

But sometimes its hard to see ourselves as heroes.

We don’t always feel special.

But there is someone out there who does.

And that someone started it all.

(go to myspace.com/studentrefuge to the video that we showed here)

- The problem with self-help

Stool Analogy

Can’t fix itself analogy (use the stool)

It doesn’t know how to make itself better because it’s incapable.

It doesn’t have the power to figure something out as big how it was created.

We say, well duh, it’s a stool. It doesn’t have a brain.

But we do have a brain don’t we.

We can upgrade this stool if wanted to couldn’t we?

We can because we have a higher power than this creation does.

But what if the stool had a little bit of a brain?

And what if it chooses one of two things.

1. It decides it doesn’t want your help

2. It decides that you don’t exist.

a. How would you feel?

b. Why would it believe in you? It only understands itself and since you don’t act like a stool.

You would call the stool foolish… (and I’d call you crazy for talking to the thing)… stool talker

You see the thing will never become any different.. and if it was broken, it would never be able to fix itself. It would take you or me… the higher power to take it there.

(you can talk about how they’re dynamic and unique here)

2000 years ago, one man started talking and something was familiar about Him.

His stories connected with us and made sense.

You probably here this and you go “oh dude here comes the Jesus speech”, but here me out.

What was there about one man that has caused such an up roar.

It’s because Jesus said we were all special.

He told us to love the people who hated us.

He showed us how to see this world.

And He showed us purpose.

And here’s what he told us about our purpose.

It’s not about you.

It’s about a connection. And that connection has a name.

His Name is Jesus.

(next week… big earth, small me)

Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?

(notes and thoughts from "More than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell)
Matt: 22:37,38

"A student at the University of Uruguay said to me 'Professor McDowell, why can't you refute Christianity?' I answered, "For a very simple reason. I'm unable to explain away an event in history - the resurrection of Jesus Christ.'" -Josh McDowell in his book "More than a Carpenter"

If Christ didn't raise from the dead than all of Christianity falls on its face, because then He isn't the son God, but merely a dead man.

Jesus Burial
- He was wrapped in linen cloth

- 100 pounds of aromatic spices, mixed together to form a gummy substance to the wrappings

- The Body was placed in a solid rock tomb

- An extremely large stone that weighed appx. Two Tons was rolled by levers against the entrance

- A roman guard of strictly disciplined men were stationed to guard the tomb
Fear of Punishment "produced flawless attention to duty, especially in the night watches."

- The guard affixed on the tomb the Roman seal, a stamp of Roman power and authority.
Anyone trying to move the stone from the tomb's entrance would have broken the seal and thus incurred the wrath of the Roman law.


The Empty Tomb

- He appeared to the disciples with a period of 40 days after, while showing himself to them by many "convincing proofs."
- Paul wrote that Jesus appeared to more than 500 of his followers at one time, the majority of whom were still alive and could confirm what Paul wrote.

"I believe in the Resurrection, partly because a series of facts are unaccountable without it. The empty tomb was too notorious to be denied." - A.M. Ramsey

"...the resurrection could not have been maintained in Jerusalem for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb had not been established as a fact for all concerned."
- Paul Althaus

"If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the tomb in which Jesus is buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of historical evidence has been discovered in in literary sources, epigraphy, or archeology that would disprove this statement."
- Paul L. Maier

The Theories
1. The Wrong Tomb
If a wrong tomb had been involved, the Jewish authorities would have lost no time in producing the body from the proper tomb, thus effectively quenching for all time any rumor of a resurrection.

2. The Swoon Theory
"It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the tomb, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grace, the Prince of Life, an impression which is the foundation of their ministry in both their lives and deaths, at the most could only have a sad or weak voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, and then turned into their reverence into worship."- David Friedrich Strauss

In other words
"You don't call a half dead guy, the God and King and conqueror over death. You call him defeated, lucky, and most of all, human." -Tombo

3. The Body Was Stolen
If the Disciples did it...
"This goes completely against who they were before and after the crucifixion. their ethical teaching, the quality of their lives, their steadfastness in suffering and persecution. Nor would it begin to explain their huge transformation from defeated and dispirited escapists into witnesses whom no opposition could muzzle." -Anderson

If the Romans or Jewish Leaders did it..
"...If they had, why didn't they explain exactly where the body lay? Why didn't they recover the corpse, put it on a cart, and wheel it through the center of Jerusalem? Such an action would certainly have destroyed Christianity..."

Evidence for the Resurrection
"There exists such an overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true." -Lord Darling former Chief Justice of England