August 28 New Hope E-News

Announcements

Who Are We?-- The month of September will see us exploring just who we are. They say you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been, so we're going to spend 5 weeks focusing on the foundational stories at the beginning of Genesis: Creation, Sin, the Flood, Babel & Abraham's call.

Labyrinth Questions-- The labyrinth at the church is in bad need of some TLC, as well as individuals willing to invest some time in ongoing maintenance. The session is trying to determine how best to be good stewards of the labyrinth. If you're willing to be part of an effort to maintain the labyrinth, please get in touch with Keith.

Community Kitchen Spot

There are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them in the grocery cart.

Spaghetti Noodles

ZIPLOCK SANDWICH BAGS

BROWN PAPER LUNCH BAGS

# 10 CANS VEGETABLES

COFFEE CREAMER

CEREAL

CANNED TUNA

NAPKINS

METAL FORKS / SPOONS

New Hope News

Sunday School—This Sunday, the adult class will begin a chapter-by-chapter study of Matthew's Gospel.

Pray For:

Lynn Meyer & Christine Dyer

Justin

Rachel keeps telling me that she's going to have a baby before too long. So she'd appreciate your prayers.

Lina Hart, who had hip surgery on Tuesday

Egypt. Syria. Afghanistan. Pray for peace.

Links

Advice on Life

An article on Coptic Christianity

A secret business of doing good

Told You So, Dad

The ethics of cloning animals

Science & Babel

Keith's Random Thoughts

The e-newsletter will probably be taking a few weeks off after this. Rachel's going to have a baby sometime in the next 8 or 9 days, depending on when that baby decides that the outside world is ready for her appearance. I can say with great certainty that neither Rachel nor I are ready, and I don't think Caleb is either, but we are excited. Being ready is overrated, right? (I think Jesus would disagree with this.)

It's kind of a crazy time to bringing a child into the world. From the looks of it, the situation in Syria, where thousands have already been killed, is getting worse. I doubt that cruise missiles will improve the situation. (I had a thought this morning that perhaps the US should only intervene when 50% of the US population can identify the targeted nation on a world map. It's a rather imperfect theory that would prevent us from getting involved in places like Rwanda and Grenada, but it might give us a helpful pause to consider the implications of our actions) Syria's not the only chaotic place on the planet. The unemployment rates in Europe are staggeringly high. The economy in our own country isn't exactly setting new records. People keep shooting each other.

And yet...

A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Babies are signs of hope, reminders of new life. They are utterly dependent upon the world's goodness for their survival. They require love to develop and grow. In babies, there is promise and hope.

We need that in this world. We need to be reminded that there is cause for hope, not despair. We need to remember that while darkness looms, it shall not overcome the light. Each and every one of us need to let our hope be on display, to let our light shine for the sake of those who have forgotten about hope in the midst of gloom. We need hope.

In babies, I am reminded that we live in a hopeful place, where tomorrow has not yet been determined and we can influence one another for good.

In Christ, I see the fulfillment of hope. I see a conquering hero that promises to set all things right, that assures me that evil shall not triumph, no matter what weapons it brings and what chaos it sows. Christ shall win, and I need to be reminded of that daily, lest I join in the chorus of despair, believing that all is lost.

Love is stronger than death, and new life is filled with promise and hope.

Text for this Sunday

Genesis 2:4-25 (ESV)

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. 5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

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Sermon on the Lord's Prayer, focused on Temptation (8/25/2013)

Matthew 6:9-13 (ESV) 
  9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.


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This coming week is a big week for a lot of people in this country, particularly in this section of the country.  On Thursday, college football season kicks off.  I’m sure most of the country will be tuned in to watch Presbyterian college play Wake Forest University.  Millions of people have been waiting with bated breath for this day to arrive.  Frankly, many religious leaders, myself included, are somewhat concerned with the level of passion that football invokes, especially when compared to the passion that religion invokes.  That’s another sermon for another day, but football has become a quasi-religion in this country.

Now, ask any casual fan of a football team who the starting quarterback for their favorite team is, and they’ll probably be able to tell you his name.  If you want to see how well they really know the team, though, ask them who the starting offensive linemen are.  Some die-hard fans will know, but most folks won’t be able to name the five men responsible for keeping the quarterback on his feet.  The quarterback can’t do his job well without the offensive line, but it’s not the offensive line that gets all the glory. 

Now, as hard as this may be for you to believe, I’ve never played football.  I know I may have the rugged stature of a football player, but I was always able to beat back the nagging of coaches.  That, and my high school didn’t have a football team.  And my mom told me I wasn’t allowed to play football.  And I’d be terrible at it.

But I have to imagine that some of the players on the team resent the attention the quarterback gets.  He gets a rather large share of the glory and the blame, and most of the spotlight is cast upon him, far more than the linemen get. 

Today, we’re talking about temptation.  We’re talking about the prayer Jesus teaches us for God to keep us out of temptation and to deliver us from evil.  We’re trying to determine what we can learn from this last section of the Lord’s Prayer.

But first, we need to talk about what temptation is, and I want to borrow this image from the world of football.  See, when we’re tempted, we’re always tempted to be selfish.  Nobody’s ever tempted to be too selfless.  I’ve yet to have someone walk into my office and say that they’re struggling with the urge to give too much away.  As far as I know, they don’t have a group that meets to help people who have overwhelming desires to serve too many people.  Temptation leads us in the opposite direction from selflessness—it tempts us to be selfish.

Just look at the first sin, the one committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  What did the serpent promise?  That eating the fruit of the tree would make them like God.  They wanted to be more than they were.  They wanted things that weren’t rightly theirs.  They wanted to claim for themselves rights that belonged to God.  They were tempted to be selfish. 

Fast forward to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.  What were the temptations of the devil?  They were to provide for himself, to secure himself, to gain power for himself.  The devil was trying to get Jesus to be selfish and use his powers and his privilege for his own good, rather than the good of others.  The devil was trying to focus Jesus’ vision upon himself.

Friends, the temptations you and I face are no different.  When you look at the 7 deadly sins, they’re all selfish.  Lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy and pride are all selfish sins.  They’re all sins that build up or serve the self, rather than serving another.  It’s about what I can get for me.

So when we talk about temptation, we talk about how the devil is tempting us to look inward first, at the expense or neglect of others.  The devil is trying to get us to seek our own wants and needs regardless of how it affects others.  The devil is trying to isolate us.  When we value our needs more than the needs of our relationships, our relationships struggle.  When we value our success more than the success of our companies, the companies suffer.  Whenever we focus exclusively on ourselves rather than the community, we are giving in to temptation.

I’d like to take a moment and life up two Biblical examples of individuals giving in to selfish temptation in two completely different ways. 

The first is King David.  If you’ve studied Biblical history, you may know that King David was labeled as a man after God’s own heart.  He was passionately in love with God, and his reign was supposed to point to God in all he did.

But King David gave in to temptation. 

Israel was off at war, and David had stayed home.  This was mistake #1.  Next, David goes up on the roof of his palace late in the afternoon.  Now, to us this doesn’t seem so dangerous.  But we don’t live in ancient Israel, where the only hot water heater was the giant ball of fire in the sky.  So the women would fill up their bathtubs, which were on the roof, in the morning and let the sun heat the water up all day.  Then, in the late afternoon, when the water was warm, they would go bathe.  Everyone knew this.  David knew this, too.

In other words, if you wanted to watch women bathe, the palace roof, which would have been taller than other buildings, would have been a great place to be.  If, however, you’re a married man, it’s not such a great idea, particularly if you discover that the woman you just watched bathe is married to someone else, especially when that someone else is off fighting in the war for you.  But David gave in to temptation.  However, had David never even gone up on the roof, he wouldn’t have been faced with temptation.  He wouldn’t have had to resist temptation, because he wouldn’t have been in a place to be tempted.

So lesson #1 here is that a good way to resist temptation is to not put ourselves in places to be tempted.  The devil tends to personalize our temptation, so we’re each tempted by something different, but this is pretty clear.  If you’re tempted to gluttony, Golden Corral isn’t a good place for you to go and eat.  If you’re tempted to envy, you probably shouldn’t watch the television shows about rich and famous people.  We could go on and on, but it’s wise for us to not put ourselves in places to be tempted to act wrongly.

There’s also another form of temptation, and that’s the temptation toward inaction. 

Jesus illustrates this well in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  In it, a man is robbed and beaten and left lying on the side of the road.  Before the Samaritan shows up to help, two men, a priest and a Levite, show up, survey the scene, and pass by the beaten and hurting man without helping.  The temptation here is to value their own comfort and cleanliness over the needs of other, which might interfere with their lives.  They’re busy folks, and they give in to the temptation to believe that their needs and their business is the most important thing in the world, far more important than the needs of another, which might encroach upon their comfort.

Frankly, we don’t talk about this much, but I think it’s a big thing that the Christian church is struggling with.

We like being comfortable.  We like our routines and our habits and our communities and our friends, and we don’t value intrusion or the needs of others, particularly when these others are different than we.  So we are tempted to ignore the world outside our door and get on with our own business, hoping that someone else will take care of those needs.  We are tempted to inaction, and this, too, is wrong.

So these are two ways temptation works. 

What does it mean to pray for God not to bring us into temptation?

Again, we go back to selfishness.  If temptation always tries to make us opt for selfishness, what we need is to be reminded of the needs of others.  And this happens best in community.

I believe that our prayer for God not to bring us into temptation is a prayer for God to surround us with the type of people who will help us see temptation for what it is and give us the strength to resist it.  I believe God gives us individual strength and can help us resist, but we are always stronger together.  If you’ve ever watched the Discovery channel for more than 10 minutes, you’ve watched how lions hunt.  They try and pick off one member of the herd, because they know they can’t confront the entire herd.  It’s always fascinating to watch a predator retreat in the face of a herd determined to run him or her off.

1 Peter tells us the Devil is like a roaring lion, and in order for us to resist him best, we need strong community.  We don’t resist temptation well on our own, so we need God to work in the hearts and minds of people working together to help us move past temptation and to act rightly.  In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul tells the church in Corinth that God will not let you be tested beyond your strength.  But the ‘you’ in plural.  God intends for the strength of the entire community to help them resist temptation.  God intends for all of them to work together, to lean on one another, and in so doing we help one another stay faithful. 

When you’re facing temptation, how much stronger are you when another person can remind you of the importance of faithfulness?  If you’re tempted to do a business deal that cuts a corner or two, how much better can you resist when another can prop you up and remind you of your integrity?  If you’re tempted to have one more drink, how much stronger are you when another person can remind you of the road that it leads down?  On and on it goes—we are stronger together.

The entirety of the Lord’s Prayer is a call for community.  Our Father, Jesus prays.  Give us our daily bread.  Forgive us our sins.  Do not bring us into the time of trial.  Rescue us.  All of this is a lesson that we act together, as one body, with Christ as our head.

For together, we move forward.  Together, we are stronger, because God uses each of us to remind one another of the final truth—that God wins.  God delivers us from evil.  God saves us.  We cannot do this on our own, but God has done it for us, and when temptation tries to tear our eyes away from that truth and get us to focus on ourselves, we band together and remind one another that Jesus Christ is the victor and we will share with him in his eternal glory.  Throughout our lives, we remind each other of this eternal and important truth, and God works through us all to proclaim this message to the world—that Christ delivers us from sin into glory, from death into life, and that love is stronger than death.

Let us pray 

August 22 New Hope E-News

Announcements

Labyrinth Questions-- The labyrinth at the church is in bad need of some TLC, as well as individuals willing to invest some time in ongoing maintenance. The session is trying to determine how best to be good stewards of the labyrinth. If you're willing to be part of an effort to maintain the labyrinth, please get in touch with Keith.

Community Kitchen Spot

There are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them in the grocery cart.

Spaghetti Noodles

ZIPLOCK SANDWICH BAGS

BROWN PAPER LUNCH BAGS

# 10 CANS VEGETABLES

COFFEE CREAMER

CEREAL

CANNED TUNA

NAPKINS

METAL FORKS / SPOONS

New Hope News

Sunday School—This Sunday, the adult class will finish our study of Revelation (I'm serious this time). We'll pick up in chapter 21.

Pray For:

Lynn Meyer & Christine Dyer

Norma Capone

Connie Robinson

Mary McMillan & John L. Wright

Egypt. Syria. Afghanistan. Pray for peace.

Links

Simply amazing—how a school clerk talked down a gunman

Saying Goodbye to a Child, the youngster

What's happening at the Food Bank

School has started here. What about Syrian kids?

A great story about a student attending Lee University

Knitting while Detroit burns?

Seeds of Freedom

Thoughts from a church visitor

Keith's Random Thoughts

The Gospels tell an amazing story. In the midst of the desert, John the Baptist announces that something amazing will happen, that a movement will begin, that hearts and minds and imaginations will be captured by what God is about to do.

And then Jesus shows up and shatters every expectation that the people have for how God acts and works and loves and cares. Jesus shows up and listens to the poor and heals the blind and makes room for children. He confronts the religious leaders of the day and calls them hypocrites. For disciples, he calls men whom the world has already judged as unqualified for such work. He eats dinner in houses no respectable person would enter. When surrounded by large crowds, he teaches about how hard it is to follow him faithfully. When given every opportunity to escape execution, he embraces it.

Aspiring leaders in today's world don't follow his model. They don't embrace suffering and humility. They don't choose the least qualified assistants. They don't spend their time with people whom the world thinks don't matter.

And yet, when Christ ascends to heaven, rather than collapse, through the power of God the movement sweeps across the known world, transforming 11 uncertain men into dynamic proclaimers of hope and grace. The men and women who followed Christ become the first fruits of a movement that is still changing the world today.

Only God could have done this.

I fear that the church today doesn't always rely on God. I fear that we're so certain of our own knowledge, so determined to do things well, so comfortable in our buildings and history and tradition that we've stopped recognizing our daily need of God's grace and our dependence upon his love. Do we cling to the hem of Christ's robe? Do we fall at the foot of the cross? Do we flee from sin and run to God? Are we transformed anew each morning, called into the light of his grace and living from our principle identity as children of the living God?

May we hear the voice of God calling us today, and may all the competing voices fade away as we focus on how lovely God is. May that be enough, and may it drive us out into the world to love as we have been loved.

Text for this Sunday

Matthew 6:9-13 (CEV)

9 You should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,

help us to honor

your name.

10 Come and set up

your kingdom,

so that everyone on earth

will obey you,

as you are obeyed

in heaven.

11 Give us our food for today.

12 Forgive us for doing wrong,

as we forgive others.

13 Keep us from being tempted

and protect us from evil.

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Keith's Blog & Devotionals for your Kindle

Tesla Model S & the church

  I like cars.  There's no denying that.  I like keeping up with what's going on in the car world, and I find new designs and new models endlessly fascinating.  If I had an unlimited budget and no guilty conscience (I doubt either one of those will happen), I'd get a new car every 6 months.

  I'm also very aware of how dangerous cars are.  Driving is the single most dangerous thing most of us ever do, and we do it every day, often without thought as to how dangerous it is.  (I suppose if we really thought about it, we'd probably never just 'run out for milk', so maybe it's a good thing that we don't think about it much.)  Those billboards over the freeway are all-too-present reminders of how dangerous driving can be, reminding us how many people went out for a drive and never came home.  The roads can be scary places, and every time I'm stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway I try to remember to be more grateful that I'm safe than frustrated that I'm late.

  So when I saw the headline that said that Tesla claimed that its Model S set the record for safety tests, I was intrigued.

  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doesn't release anything above five stars, but they apparently have a combined score beyond the stars, and the Model S set a new record.  My favorite part of the article, however, was down near the bottom, where they were talking about the rollover ratings.

For the rollover test, which checks the vehicle’s resistance to the crushing forces of a rollover crash, a machine applies force to the car’s roof. But the machine broke at around the 4g mark, which is beyond the federal standard.

  That's right.  Tesla made this thing so safe and so strong that it broke the machine.  They didn't set out to merely meet the standards--they exceeded them by so much that it's rollover safety can't be measured.  That should make you feel pretty safe.

  All of this got me thinking about the church and the members that comprise it.  I am sure there are studies that can say what society expects of the church, how they expect us to be good people and good employees and love other people and be generous.  I am sure there is a general expectation of the kind of people Christians are supposed to be.  (Some of that probably isn't so flattering, but that's another issue)

  What if we so deeply imitated the selfless love of Christ that we shattered the world's expectations?  What if we were so willing to set aside our own priorities and agendas and serve those around us to such an extent that people didn't even know how to react to it?  What if we were so filled with the kind of love Christ demonstrated that we broke the mold for the way we have traditionally aspired to 'do church'?

  Like the Samaritan woman at the well, whose astounded testimony led an entire village to meet Christ, I believe our selfless love would cause others to come and see, to meet the Risen Lord and experience his love and grace.  They would want to see for themselves, to experience his love for themselves, and the world would be a different place.

  Just imagine what it might be like if we broke the machine.

Sermon For 8/18/2013 On The Lord's Prayer, Part 4

Matthew 6:9-13 (ESV) 
  9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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Does anyone remember the hope of flying cars?  I got Boys’ Life magazine as a child, and they constantly focused on flying cars to the point that it seemed to me we would all be navigating the skies by the year 2000.  We’d have flying cars and flying cities and flying-whatever-the-heck-we-wanted.

Now, in the year 2014, I’m reading about how they’re redesigning the Toyota Corolla.  Not quite as exciting as flying cars.

I have a theory about what it is that captures the imagination the way that flying cars do.  They symbolize complete independence.  When your car can fly, you don’t need to depend on or worry about anyone else.  You can just fly out of your driveway and to wherever you please.  You are as free as a bird, with no need to worry about where the road might lead.  You are free. When you’re sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic with a thousand of your closest friends each and every morning, the idea of not being limited by anyone or anything is pretty tempting. 

We all long for independence.  Since we’ve been little children, we’ve had it drilled into our heads that we should all dream of being our own master, of mastering our own fate and being lords of our own domains.  As Americans, we celebrate independence and teach and preach it whenever we get the chance.  We threw off the shackles of the British, and now we each are free to do and be what we please.

If we’re truly free, we’re not indebted to anyone, right?  If we owe a debt to anyone, they are a master over us.  They can control us.  I owe over $100,000 to Suntrust Bank, and if I shrug off this obligation, they will kick me out of my house.  Now, they don’t ask too much of me, only that I send them a rather sizable check every month, but I am a debtor to them.  I am not completely free to do whatever I want.

Jesus, here in this petition, is reminding us of another debt, one far greater than any financial obligation you or I could rack up in our lives.  Currently, the most expensive home for sale in Chattanooga is a nice little 7 bedroom number on Missionary Ridge that lists for just under $3 million.  You could buy that, never pay a dime on your mortgage, and your debt would scarcely register compared to the debt to which Jesus is referring.

We have offended God.  We have sinned against God, which is the greatest offense we could ever commit in our lives.  To the one who created us in his image, we have turned our backs.  To the one who promises to be as a bride to us, we have cheated.  To the one who pledges to love us eternally, we have spurned.  Since the fall of humanity in the garden of Eden, each and every human heart has, in some way, turned from the worship of God and chosen to worship false images, false gods, false idols.  We have pursued our own independence at the neglect of God and others, and we have strayed from the narrow pathway that leads to life everlasting.  In our sin, we have racked up a debt to God.

Now, the debt of sin is not as easily paid as other debts.  If I make enough mortgage payments over the next few decades, I’ll repay my debt to Suntrust.  There is no possible way I will ever make enough payments to God to make up for the debt I have accumulated by my sin.  It is simply impossible.

Fortunately, we worship a God of grace who, in Jesus Christ, has forgiven our sins.  Colossians 2:13 tells us that we were dead in our sins but were made alive in Christ Jesus, who forgives us our sins and cancels the debt that stood against us.  In Christ, God has canceled our debt to him, making it possible for us to have life with him.  What we could not pay, Jesus paid for us.  He who had no sin became sin so that we might have life.  It’s a free gift.

So why, you might ask, does Jesus teach us to pray for forgiveness?  If we have been forgiven for sins, why bother asking for it?  We’re not in the habit of continuing to ask for things we’ve already received.

In this petition, Jesus is reminding us that we are not our own lords and masters.  We do not exist to serve ourselves.  We have not been created so that we might make much of ourselves.  In this prayer, we acknowledge that we need forgiveness, that we depend on God, that we are not our own master.  We remember our sinfulness, lest we begin to believe that we are better than we are. 

But in remembering our sinfulness, we also remember God’s grace.  In praying for forgiveness, we remember that God has forgiven our sins.  We remember the grace of God that has made it possible for us to be redeemed from the hand of sin and death, and we can rejoice that our sin does not condemn us to an eternity far from God.

So Jesus teaches us to be reminded that we are not independent, but we are rather recipients of a great gift, and that God is a great and gracious God.

Then he continues, and we begin to wonder about God’s generosity.

Forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors, we are told to pray.

And we wonder about that little ‘as’. 

I once heard someone call it the most dangerous preposition in the Bible.

If we’re honest, we’ve all stared at that little word and wondered how big of a difference it makes.  If we’re honest, we can confess that we’ve wondered if God will only forgive us to the extent that we forgive others.  We’ve wondered if we’re doomed to an eternity with only a fraction of the grace God has poured out.

In short, I’d like to offer this rejoinder to all those questions:  No.

By no, I mean we don’t control God.  Jesus isn’t telling us that forgiveness is offered by God to the same extent that we offer it to others.  God doesn’t take our limitations as a basis for his actions.  When Jesus was on the cross and he looked upon his Roman executioners, he didn’t cry out, Father, forgive them to the extent they figure out what all this means and offer some grace later on to those that might owe them something.  No, he cried out, so that all could hear, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.  When Jesus ascended the cross, he didn’t do so to bleed a little, offering a pint of blood, because that’s all our forgiveness was worth.  No, he died on the cross, offering himself as the sacrifice to pay for all of our sins, past, present and future.  We cannot control God, and let us be grateful for that, for God is always more gracious and loving than we can imagine.

So what does this little word ‘as’ mean?  What does it mean to pray for forgiveness as we forgive others?

What Jesus is doing is linking our relationship with God to the relationships we have with those around us.  Jesus is teaching us that our relationships with our fellow humans should be shaped and defined by our relationship with God.  Jesus is telling us that a religious life is not just the intimate connection you have with God—it bleeds over, explodes out of us and affects every single part of our lives.  We who have graciously received unbounded and unlimited grace and love from God should be so transformed by the experience that we are then willing to seek to duplicate this love of God as we interact with those around us.  If we understand what it means to be forgiven, we cannot help but want to offer this to others, to give grace and love and pray that it transforms lives.  In doing so, we point others to God. 

It’s easy for us to get caught up in our individual relationship with God, and we start to believe that is all that matters.  What Jesus is teaching us is that we can’t get too comfortable in that.  We have to let Christ transform all of life, so that we’re not just worried about worshiping rightly, but also about acting properly.  Jesus tells a parable about this later in the Gospel, portraying a servant who owes 15 years worth of wages to his master.  The servant is forgiven freely, and while he is so grateful, he is unable to see how this should affect the rest of his life, so that when he meets a fellow servant who owes him a fraction of what he has been forgiven, he has the man thrown in prison when he is unable to pay.  Rather than extend grace, he uses his newfound freedom to imprison others.  The gift has failed to transform his heart.  He doesn’t understand the gift.

 And so we must see that how we treat others is a consequence, not a condition, of how we have been treated by God.  If our faith is truly shaping us, if it has truly transformed us, our interactions will be shaped by grace and forgiveness.  To forgive is to be selfless, to give up the right to something that is owed to us.  To forgive is giving up the right to selfishness, to make much of ourselves.  To forgive means we are giving up something that belongs to us.

When we do this, we imitate Christ, who gave up everything he deserved and lavished it upon us.  The honor and glory he rightly deserved is poured upon us, and the indignation and scorn we deserved was poured out upon him.  Our gratitude for this selfless act should shape our hearts and minds, that we go forth as a forgiven and grateful people, not looking to make much of ourselves, not set on independence for us, but rather looking to make much of God and of his eternal love, and may we do so as we forgive and love those around us.

Let us pray

August 15 New Hope E-News

Announcements

School Supplies-- Thank you for all the generous school supply donations! You all are amazing! This will be the last week of the drive. THANKS!!!!

Kleenex, Clorox Wipes, #2 pencils, white copy paper, block erasers, scissors, crayons (24 pack), yellow highlighters, baby wipes, spiral notebooks, backpacks (w/out wheels), post-it notes, 3x5 index cards, paper towels, glue sticks.

Community Kitchen Spot

There are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them in the grocery cart.

Spaghetti Noodles

ZIPLOCK SANDWICH BAGS

BROWN PAPER LUNCH BAGS

# 10 CANS VEGETABLES

COFFEE CREAMER

CEREAL

CANNED TUNA

NAPKINS

METAL FORKS / SPOONS

New Hope News

Sunday School—This Sunday, the adult class will finish our study of Revelation. We'll pick up in chapter 19.

Pray For:

Lynn Meyer & Christine Dyer

Norma Capone

Mary McMillan & John L. Wright

Egypt. Pray for wisdom & discernment. Pray for peace. Pray for guidance. Just pray.

Links

The public death

Is Jesus the answer?

From the NFL to the pulpit

Anybody want to see the history of the world in a chart?

Have you wondered just what the theory of Intelligent Design is?

Nuts are recalled because they fail to say that they contain... nuts

Tennessee River Gorge Trust

Keith's Random Thoughts

Wow. Chattanooga just announced this morning that there is going to be an Ironman here, starting in 2014, for the next five years (I think it might take me 5 years just to do it once). I'm genuinely excited for the city—it will be an exciting event and a great economic boon for Chattanooga. Personally, though, if I was going to go for a 112 mile bike ride before running a marathon, I'd want to do so in a place just a wee bit flatter. At least the 2.4 mile swim is downstream. You've got that going for you...

I once thought I wanted to do an Ironman. What I realized is that I just wanted to be able to say I'd done an Ironman. The actual experience of traveling 140.6 miles in one day without using a car isn't something I'm very interested in. I've done a couple of Olympic distance races, and those three hours were quite enough.

Life changes. Goals change. New things come into the picture and old things fade away. We're constantly growing and being stretched and often discovering that we don't stretch the way we want or the way we imagine or the way we think we should. But life keeps changing.

And I believe God is right in the middle of it all. God is leading us through this life, day after precious day, and we are seeking to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. The closer we cling to him, the better we understand this will. Just because we follow Christ, that doesn't mean we won't get anything wrong, and it doesn't mean we'll never have to change. Look at the life of Moses and Peter and David and countless other Biblical figures. All of them went through times of change throughout their lives. Things were rarely static. They were often challenged and pushed and forced to evaluate things. God calls us to grow in completely new directions, and he uses our past experience to make us stronger in the future.

So let us be flexible and not hold too tightly to anything but Christ. In doing so, we prepare ourselves for the journey of faith, wherever it leads, and we can be confidant that God will be with us no matter what happens.

Text for this Sunday

Matthew 6:9-13 (CEV)

9 You should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,

help us to honor

your name.

10 Come and set up

your kingdom,

so that everyone on earth

will obey you,

as you are obeyed

in heaven.

11 Give us our food for today.

12 Forgive us for doing wrong,

as we forgive others.

13 Keep us from being tempted

and protect us from evil.

NewHopeChattanooga.org

New Hope on Facebook & Twitter

New Hope on iTunes

Keith's Blog & Devotionals for your Kindle

Sermon for 8/11/2013 on the Lord's Prayer, part 3

Matthew 6:9-13  (CEV)
9 You should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, help us to honor your name. 10 Come and set up your kingdom, so that everyone on earth will obey you, as you are obeyed in heaven. 11 Give us our food for today. 12 Forgive us for doing wrong, as we forgive others. 13 Keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil

*********************************

*********************************

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a pretty boring guy. How boring, you ask? I eat oatmeal for breakfast. Every morning for the past five years, I have fixed a giant bowl of oatmeal. I mix different things in it, but it’s a pretty boring way to start the day.

How many of you are breakfast eaters?

So what types of things do you eat for breakfast?

Just as important—why do you eat breakfast?

As for those of you who don’t eat breakfast, why don’t you eat breakfast?

Now, the big reason I eat breakfast every morning is because I’m hungry. If I don’t eat breakfast first thing in the morning, I’ll be roving around eating just about anything in an hour because I need to eat. My stomach is empty first thing in the morning and it’s crying out for food. Some people just aren’t hungry in the morning.

Others don’t realize that they’re hungry.

I get Caleb up first thing in the morning, and I’ve discovered that I have to take him and set him in his high chair, or else he’ll run around and play for an hour. When I put him in the high chair, he’ll eat because it’s his habit, but otherwise, he just doesn’t realize that he’s hungry, and he’ll fill his time doing things other than eating. Sometimes, he’s content to leave the house without eating. I try to avoid telling the day care worker that he hasn’t eaten anything, because I really don’t want to know what Caleb is like when he realizes that he hasn’t eaten in twelve hours and is pretty darn hungry. I’ve tried to convince him that he is hungry, but the day you figure out how to reason with a two year old, you let me know how to do so.

So how does this fit into a conversation about asking God for our daily bread?

Simple—food doesn’t do us much good if we’re not hungry, or if we don’t realize that we’re hungry. If I take Rachel out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and she tells me, as we’re sitting down, that she’s not hungry, there isn’t a whole lot of point in our being out to dinner. I can’t imagine that it’s much fun to sit and watch me eat.

So when we talk about God giving us our daily bread, the first thing we need to do is recognize our overwhelming sense of hunger. We need what God gives us. Every single part of our being needs to cling to God. The primary sin of the Pharisees, in my opinion, is the sin of pride—they had so carefully honed their religious practices that they had excluded God from it. They thought that their practices would get them into God’s good graces. Jesus comes to tell us how badly we need a Savior. He wants to tell us, to show us, that we are a sinful people that need a Savior, and that the only thing that can fill that need is God.

This is important.

Society is busy trying to distract us and convince us that we can fill our needs with just about any old thing, and they have plenty of things to sell us that will do the trick. This is the equivalent of you, as a child, with a carton of ice cream in one hand, a spoon the other, ten minutes before dinner. Know what happens if you eat the ice cream?

You’ll spoil your dinner!

Mom told us this a thousand times, and we never believed her. We always figured there was room for both, but we never got the chance to put the theory to the test. If we did, we discovered that mom was right. You can’t have both. You can’t fill up on sweets and still have room for the nutritious stuff.

Jesus tells us this when he tells us that we can’t serve two masters. But how we try. We try and have both. We fill our minds and our thoughts with all sorts of things. We fill our days with thoughts of the royal baby, with the pursuit of money and power, with sports and with news. None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but when they become the primary things that we take in, they prevent us from feasting on God’s Word. They prevent us from eating the daily bread God is trying to give us.

So what is our daily bread?

I’ll define it this way—it’s our life-giving relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s recognizes that everything good in life—our very life itself—is a free gift from him, made possible by his love, and completely dependent upon his free will. It’s rooting ourselves in him, identifying ourselves as his children, and letting his wisdom guide us in everything we do.

That is our daily bread.

That’s a lot, and I believe it’s a lifetime’s worth of figuring it out. Nobody wakes up one day and gets this all figured out before lunch, never to sin again. We all have good days and bad days, but the important question is how well we are growing. Is your faith growing? Where are you now compared to five years ago? Ten years ago? Are you moving forward, progressing in your love of Christ and your faithfulness toward him? Are you feasting on the bread he’s trying to feed you with?

Now, I believe the primary way God feeds us is through his Word. He gives us Scripture for many reasons, two of which are to reveal himself to us and to teach us how to live. Scripture tells us who we are, and it tells us how we are to be. It tells us that we fall short, and it tells us that we need a Savior. It’s Scripture that reveals to us our dependence on our daily bread.

So when is the best time to feast upon this daily bread? I believe that it’s important to eat all day, every day, but we need to start first thing in the morning. When the Israelites were given manna from heaven in Exodus 16, we’re told that when the sun appeared and day grew hot, the manna disappeared. In other words, if the Israelites didn’t get out and gather the manna first thing in the morning, they missed their chance.

I believe the same is true for us. I’m not going to say that if you don’t study Scripture for half an hour in the morning you’ve missed your chance for faithful living that day, but I will say that not being fed by God’s Word in the morning makes it more difficult to orient yourself to live faithfully that day.

Think of it as a roadmap—when is it best to first look at a map? At the beginning, middle, or end of a trip?

If you think of each day as something to navigate, don’t you think it’d be wise to peek at the map first thing in the morning, to make sure you’re starting out correctly?

Now, for some of you, that’s going to be more challenging than others. Teachers, I know mornings are particularly rough for you, seeing as how you have to be in school so early in the morning. I’m not saying you need to wake up an hour earlier to study the Bible. I think it’s important to set aside anywhere from 10-60 minutes in a day to read Scripture, but that’s not always going to happen in the morning. So find a way to work Scripture into your morning. An easy way? Memorize a Psalm and recite it in the shower. Tape a favorite Scripture verse to your mirror in the bathroom. Read the Bible during breakfast. Say a prayer when you get into the car. Listen to an audio Bible in the car.

I could go on, but you get the point. God wants to feed you daily. Jesus Christ is the bread of life, and he knows that the world offers an infinite number of substitutes, but only he can truly meet our needs.

But we need to be hungry, and we need to recognize our hunger. Only then can we be wise enough to stop and eat. Only then can we truly begin to give thanks for the nourishment we find in God.

Let us pray  

August 8 New Hope E-News

Announcements

School Supplies-- Folks, I know we ask for a lot. There are a lot of needs in the congregation, and we're always collecting laundry detergent & food & things for the community kitchen. So yes, we're asking for more, because we have the ability to give and there are still more needs. If you are able, could you bring some school supplies and drop them in the big blue tub in the narthex? This will only be there for the next 2-3 weeks, so this is a limited chance to join with Earthfare & First Bank. Items you can bring:

Kleenex, Clorox Wipes, #2 pencils, white copy paper, block erasers, scissors, crayons (24 pack), yellow highlighters, baby wipes, spiral notebooks, backpacks (w/out wheels), post-it notes, 3x5 index cards, paper towels, glue sticks.

Ladies Luncheon-- The Ladies' Luncheon will be August 13 at the Mt. Vernon Restaurant. Please contact Marilyn Suber if you're interested in attending.

Community Kitchen Spot

There are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them in the grocery cart.

ZIPLOCK SANDWICH BAGS

BROWN PAPER LUNCH BAGS

# 10 CANS VEGETABLES

COFFEE CREAMER

CEREAL

CANNED TUNA

NAPKINS

METAL FORKS / SPOONS

New Hope News

Sunday School—This Sunday, the adult class will continue to study Revelation. We'll pick up in chapter 15, hopefully making it through chapter 19.

Pray For:

Lynn Meyer & Christine Dyer

Norma Capone

Everyone is back to school today. Be in prayers for the school year ahead and all that it brings

Father, We ask for funding to increase in schools for more art classes, and that school boards would see the incredible value of the arts. (From Chattanooga House of Prayer)

Links

Failures of kindness

The trauma of being alive

How the Devil got his looks

There are lots of different ways to serve people

Change & Pain

Your life is more epic than you think

How near death experiences change the faith of family members

Looking for fair trade gifts in Chattanooga?

Keith's Random Thoughts

I love baseball. It's no secret that I've been addicted to it since the days when I would stand out in the driveway, bat in hand, with the Reds' game on the radio and swing away as the pitches came in. Now Rachel makes me do this in the backyard so I don't embarrass Caleb.

The baseball season is a long 162 game slog. It's an endurance race that tests the quality of the team and its ability to persevere. You can't have a good week and win the championship, and you can't have a bad week and end up in last place. The long season means that a team's strength's are revealed and tested, just as a team cannot cover its weaknesses for 6 months. The old saying is that you can't win a pennant in May, but you can lose one.

Social media and baseball have an interesting interaction. If you're at all tuned in to social media, you know well its tendency to make the latest news, however big or small, into the BIGGEST THING EVER. There are many reasons as to why this occurs—it may well be that social media turns us all into reporters/commentators, so each news story is an opportunity to share our opinion with our fans/friends/followers, each of whom waits with bated breath to see what we are having for lunch or what we think about US-Russia relations.

After each baseball game, there are countless individuals willing to cast judgment on the entire team for the entire season. Lose a game badly, and the whole team is a bunch of bums who need to be tossed on the street. One player goes hitless in 30 at bats? Get rid of him! (Never mind that there are probably 500 other at bats in the season) A team wins 10 games in a row? Crown them champions!

But the baseball season is long, and the emotional reactions run the gamut from good to bad. In the end, we see the result of a long season of many games and many more at bats. The season gives us a good idea of the overall quality of the team and the talent of the players.

The Christian life is similar, I believe. As Christians, we have our entire lives to live out our faith. We grow into it, and we grow stronger over time. If we give up and throw in the towel after our first big mistake, we won't make it very far. If we believe we're the most saintly Christian ever just because we held a door for someone, our over-inflated egos will be badly bruised when we come crashing back to earth. As the saying goes, we're never as good as we think we are, and we're never as bad as we think we are. We're not perfect, but we're not terrible. We're growing into our faith, and hopefully we learn from what is in our past and are able to improve in the future. Hopefully, we're depending on the grace of the Holy Spirit and falling more in love with Jesus Christ each and every day, not letting ourselves stray from the path of discipleship due to emotional highs or lows based upon one day's actions. Each day is 1/365 out of 1/75(ish). It's a small part of our life, and our Christian witness is the big, overall picture of how we are living and how we are growing.

Are some parts of some days bigger than others? Sure. Are there critical moments that should inform and guide us? Absolutely. But recognize that life is a long effort to grow in Christ, and just because you messed up one day doesn't mean that you should give up or that God no longer loves you. We get up, dust ourselves off and carry on, pushing forward, trusting that God will lead us on.

Text for this Sunday

Matthew 6:9-13 (CEV)

9 You should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,

help us to honor

your name.

10 Come and set up

your kingdom,

so that everyone on earth

will obey you,

as you are obeyed

in heaven.

11 Give us our food for today.

12 Forgive us for doing wrong,

as we forgive others.

13 Keep us from being tempted

and protect us from evil.

NewHopeChattanooga.org

New Hope on Facebook & Twitter

New Hope on iTunes

Keith's Blog & Devotionals for your Kindle