What are you responsible for?

Only One Thing Causes Unhappiness

This is perhaps the major underlying motivation for adultery, infidelity, affairs, divorce and remarriage.

The reason our spontaneous human default is to "cling," is because "the human mind is a perpetual forge of idols" (Calvin, Institutes 1.11.8).

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Anger (Mark Twain)

Are compassion and criticism compatible?

Are you Seeking Comfort, Security and Safety?

Do you know how to stop?

How much are you affected by success or failure?

Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Desmond Tutu

"True reconciliation is not cheap. It cost God the death of His only begotten Son.

In forgiving, people are not asked to forget... Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done... It involves trying to understand the perpetrators and so have empathy, to try to stand in their shoes and appreciate the sorts of pressures and influences that might have conditioned them.

Forgiveness is not sentimental... Forgiveness means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim..."

Bishop Tutu.

What John and Paul say about Christ (Jn 1:1-2, 14; Col 1:15; 2:9; Heb 1:3)

• "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-2, 14).

• "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Col 1:15).

• "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Col 2:9).

• "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (Heb 1:3).

Lift Up Your Hands in Prayer (Psalm 88:9)

Hold up your left hand.

1. The thumb is closest to your heart--your family and friends. Pray for them 1st.
2. The index finger points the way to Jesus and God's will--teachers and leaders be wise in their own lives.
3. The middle finger, your tallest finger--people in authority who influence society. Lead with integrity.
4. The ring finger is pretty weak--the vulnerable, elderly, suffering, hungry. Meet their needs/draw them closer to God.
5. The last finger, pinky--you. OK to pray for yourself...last! Don't start there. Pray for everybody else 1st.

Your right hand.

1. Thumb, closest to your heart--first thing you pray for is. Guard your heart, because it controls your life (Prov 4:23). Everything flows from the heart! Confess your sin to get your heart right with him.
2. Index finger signals the number 1--pray for your priorities and schedule. What's most important to make it a priority in your life?
3. Tallest middle finger stands out--your influence. People see how God has worked in your life. Be an example of his love.
4. Ring finger--pray for your relationships--your friends, spouse, children, colleagues, supervisors, ministry partners, neighbors.
5. Little finger--pray for material blessings—it's just not the most important thing, so it's the last thing you pray for.

Piper's concentric circle of prayer:

1. Myself--the most needy person. Family, kids, grandkids.
2. Ministry, leaders one by one.
3. Specific people.

Preaching the Cross (Narrative Sermon, Fleming Rutledge)

• Fleming Rutledge Preaching the Cross of Christ. "You have not yet considered the gravity of sin." Anselm.
• A narrative sermon has a plot. It has
1. a beginning,
2. a destabilizing center,
3. a resolution. The resolution should come as a surprise, as a welcome surprise. Living words for life in the midst of death--every sermon ideally should be that. It should take the hearer from death to life.
• Preach a sermon that summons the congregation to an apocalypse, a revelation, something revealed, something new, something transformative. The purpose of the narrative is to lead the congregation from depression, despair, indifference into an eye-opening new way of understanding what God has done. God is the agent.
• Do sermons as dramas. I believe in that. The sermon is a drama, not a teaching. People say my sermons had beginnings, middles and ends. That's the best way to do it because the gospel itself is a story. The story of Jesus Christ is a story.
• There's a Jesus kerygma [proclamation; announcement; the preaching of the apostles as recorded in the NT] and there's a Christ kerygma. The NT is a Christ kerygma, which we often turn into a Jesus kerygma. That means if we tell enough stories about what Jesus did and summon people to do what Jesus did, that's a Jesus kerygma. But that's not the same as the justification of the ungodly, the phrase Paul uses twice, which is the center of the gospel.
• The justification of the ungodly is NOT a message about how we should try to be like Jesus. It's a message about what Jesus has done and his ongoing life. 
• Preach every Sun about the ongoing life of Jesus in the community: "Look what we can do because of this ongoing life of Jesus." NOT "Be like Jesus," but "Listen for his voice, his living voice; listen for the gospel; listen for what God is doing and has done and will do. Even through you, this little Christian church / congregation, God is working even through you, even in the midst of this terrible, demonic plague, God is still working through little bodies of Christians." Look at what is happening through these little bodies of Christians, NOT "go and do likewise," but look at what Jesus is already doing, what God is already doing, what the Holy Spirit, the Trinity is already doing. In other words, not exhorting, but enabling, not just teaching [what 3-point tends to do]. Sermon is not just teaching; it is enabling---and enabling not only belief, but enabling action that arises out of the belief. So when Jesus says, "Go and do likewise," he doesn't mean "Copy me." He means, "Here is my power, living in my vine, my beloved, my chosen."

𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙉𝙤 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝘾𝙖𝙣 𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝘽𝙚 𝙃𝙞𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙣

Do you want: 

• All your desires to be known?
• All your secrets exposed? Or remain hidden?
• To sit through a video of every detail of your personal life?

None of this would be a revelation to God "to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid." 

𝒀𝑶𝑼, 𝑰, 𝑾𝑬 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘...

The Sexiest Man in the Bible

Who is the sexiest man in the Bible? Put your money on King David. He's got it all. He's a real man's man, and a woman's man too: handsome, glamorous, magnificent in statecraft, a lion on the battlefield, a brilliantly gifted musician and poet, a flamboyantly physical presence yet deeply introspective and prayerful, a man of action and a man of contemplation ... just recounting these traits makes me go weak in the knees.

The final chapter of King David's life is as pathetic as the rest of his life is titanic. He has become so feeble that he cannot leave his room, and he shivers constantly. His servants and family pile covers on him, to no avail. Finally, in desperation, they resort to a stratagem appropriate to an Eastern potentate--they put a young woman into bed with him to keep him warm. This may sound exciting, but since he has become impotent, it is not even the last flickering of a once-brilliant flame, but a pitiful dying away into ashes--precisely the kind of death we all dread.

Excerpts from a sermon by Fleming Rutledge: God on the Move (Lk 1:26-33).

4th Sun in Advent 1996; St. John's Church, Salisbury, Connecticut.

Published in Advent. The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ, 2018.