Sermon Notes
1st Corinthians 12
Ben Loos
We are a body.
One body many members.
We are one, but different. We each are given a gift to promote the common good. With out gifts we are to serve the body, knowing that we can't fulfill all roles, but we are the ones who must fulfill the roles we are given.
When even one small part of us is hurting it effects us all.
People who don't feel like they are needed, that their contributions aren't needed. The person with foot gifts and graces looking at a person with hand gifts and grace and because they feel useless and like they don't belong. Flipping on Instagram and see people living a different life than you are and the comparison game gets worse. We can't do everything and if we could we would be God. We can rejoice that we were never meant to be God. We are created to be exactly who we are, exactly where we are, doing exactly what God has called us to do. God doesn't need 500 ears, that would be weird.
We need to trust that God has a plan and embraces diversity. God embraces unity, but not uniformity. Yes there are a lot of gifts, but the same Spirit. We are different, but not because of a different or bad spirits. Rather these are the gifts of one Spirit composing the body in a beautiful way. With the same care he organized the stars and celestial bodies he has placed in the exact place that we currently are.
It is only culture that places different importance on different roles. I am going to be me because God has made me significant. Its hard to feel valued if you contribution is never acknowledge, though. The way to keep a body healthy is bring honor to the parts that often get ignored. Every single person matters to God. Every single name, ever single day.
To those who feel they are self-sufficient and want all the roles for them self. They must realize that they don't have all the gifts. Both words in the Greek used for "gifts" totally debunk the pride we feel. This gift is just that, a gift. There is also a fear of lack of control and lack of importance. We need to trust, but it is scary to trust.
To go over and admit that we have need of others is a loss of control and an exercise in faith. How others do it may be different, but it can still be beautiful. We need to trust in God rather than in our own gifts. If we would trust we would praise others for their gifts rather than judging or tearing them down for the gifts they lack. We are a body, we are here to learn on one another and be made more beautiful through the diversity of those around us. We are better for not being self-sufficient. We are sufficient through Christ alone.
Showing posts with label Sermon Notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sermon Notes. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sermon: Roots and Shade
Sermon Notes
Jeremiah 29:1-14
Ben Loos
First Sunday in the New Building!
Circumstances
We did not choose
We do not like
We cannot change
God says stay.
All around, the world, says we should not be content, that we should rebel against our circumstances.
Why shouldn't we?
It is for our good. God is giving us a future and a hope, but this is part of his plan. Movement is not always progress. When we stop and are quite we can better discern the will of God for our circumstances. Until we do we will never learn how to just be in light of who God is in relations to us. There are things we can only learn in exile.
How do you develop character unless you are in a situation that is shitty enough to actually require you to have it? How do you learn steadfast love unless you are somewhere long enough to have your rose colored classes crushed? We, often, must stay somewhere that is hard so that it can be the stone on which we finally break our masks.
Learning dependence on God and growing in delight happens in the purest way when we are in situations that we have no other hope. God is with us in exile.
God has rooted us and we are to be shade for those around us. God uses us to bless that nations and people around us. Either we go willingly or God will plant us where he wants us.
God so values that people are rooted and bless the community they are in that he spent 30 years in a podunk town. THE CREATOR GOD OF THE UNIVERSE TOOK ON FLESH AND SPENT 30 YEARS IN A SMALL TOWN. It is possible to be everywhere and nowhere. Big goals aren't bad, but sometimes the goal can be so big that we aren't able to do anything.
When we are rooted in a neighborhood and have a healthy sense of responsibility we are able to change the world one neighbor at a time. God has placed us where we are so that we can have ordinary interactions for the sake of the gospel and people's eternal souls.
With limits come focus and boundaries come directions. For the whole world to be reached 16th and A has to be reached. Someone has to engage with that calling.
Jeremiah 29:1-14
Ben Loos
First Sunday in the New Building!
Circumstances
We did not choose
We do not like
We cannot change
God says stay.
All around, the world, says we should not be content, that we should rebel against our circumstances.
Why shouldn't we?
It is for our good. God is giving us a future and a hope, but this is part of his plan. Movement is not always progress. When we stop and are quite we can better discern the will of God for our circumstances. Until we do we will never learn how to just be in light of who God is in relations to us. There are things we can only learn in exile.
How do you develop character unless you are in a situation that is shitty enough to actually require you to have it? How do you learn steadfast love unless you are somewhere long enough to have your rose colored classes crushed? We, often, must stay somewhere that is hard so that it can be the stone on which we finally break our masks.
Learning dependence on God and growing in delight happens in the purest way when we are in situations that we have no other hope. God is with us in exile.
God has rooted us and we are to be shade for those around us. God uses us to bless that nations and people around us. Either we go willingly or God will plant us where he wants us.
God so values that people are rooted and bless the community they are in that he spent 30 years in a podunk town. THE CREATOR GOD OF THE UNIVERSE TOOK ON FLESH AND SPENT 30 YEARS IN A SMALL TOWN. It is possible to be everywhere and nowhere. Big goals aren't bad, but sometimes the goal can be so big that we aren't able to do anything.
When we are rooted in a neighborhood and have a healthy sense of responsibility we are able to change the world one neighbor at a time. God has placed us where we are so that we can have ordinary interactions for the sake of the gospel and people's eternal souls.
With limits come focus and boundaries come directions. For the whole world to be reached 16th and A has to be reached. Someone has to engage with that calling.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Sermon: What God's Looking for in a Building (Fig-ure of Speech)
Sermon Notes
Mark 11:11-26
Ben Loos
The fig that Jesus walks by has the leafy green appearance of health, but it is sick and not bearing fruit. The temple is the tree, the people of God are the tree. It looks good and healthy but it is a den of sin and secularism.
The outer court of the temple; the court of the Gentiles, the one place that the nations could learn about the one true God was a marketplace. A marketplace similar to our trading floors and add in livestock. The quiet place of reflection where the nations can seek the Father has been turned into a place of exploitation and a den of robbers.
We are meant to align our actions and desires with the owner of the house. The temple should be a place for God to feel at home. Are his comforts our comforts? The house of God should feel like home. A place of restoration and refuge for the weary and the weak. God wants us to come home and live with him.
It isn't home until we go through hard and beautiful things. Moments of pure joy and moments of sheer heartbreak. Warm conversations and spilled coffee. Hot tears and uncertain outcomes. Times when we feel God in every nerve in our body and times we feel alone in the world. Through it all coming together in love as family. Then it will be home.
Jesus invites the rich and poor alike. We are all equally undeserving of the great grace of God. God only receives the poor, because that is all he sees. Even our poorest offerings ( money, time, devotion) God will take it and multiply it.
We are the Gentiles, Jesus was knocking over the tables for us. We were the ones being excluded. We are the ends of the earth, not the center. The gulf Jesus overcame for us is so much larger than any we will have to overcome. We are the temple, we are the house of God. Where we meet, heaven and earth meet.
Mark 11:11-26
Ben Loos
The fig that Jesus walks by has the leafy green appearance of health, but it is sick and not bearing fruit. The temple is the tree, the people of God are the tree. It looks good and healthy but it is a den of sin and secularism.
The outer court of the temple; the court of the Gentiles, the one place that the nations could learn about the one true God was a marketplace. A marketplace similar to our trading floors and add in livestock. The quiet place of reflection where the nations can seek the Father has been turned into a place of exploitation and a den of robbers.
We are meant to align our actions and desires with the owner of the house. The temple should be a place for God to feel at home. Are his comforts our comforts? The house of God should feel like home. A place of restoration and refuge for the weary and the weak. God wants us to come home and live with him.
It isn't home until we go through hard and beautiful things. Moments of pure joy and moments of sheer heartbreak. Warm conversations and spilled coffee. Hot tears and uncertain outcomes. Times when we feel God in every nerve in our body and times we feel alone in the world. Through it all coming together in love as family. Then it will be home.
Jesus invites the rich and poor alike. We are all equally undeserving of the great grace of God. God only receives the poor, because that is all he sees. Even our poorest offerings ( money, time, devotion) God will take it and multiply it.
We are the Gentiles, Jesus was knocking over the tables for us. We were the ones being excluded. We are the ends of the earth, not the center. The gulf Jesus overcame for us is so much larger than any we will have to overcome. We are the temple, we are the house of God. Where we meet, heaven and earth meet.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Sermon: Sowing Our Tears
Sermon Notes
Psalm 126
Ben Loos
A memory of past laughter and a promise of a tearless future.
They are remembering the past of a deliverance and joy. They are using this for strength to have hope for the current situation.
When everything seems lost and hope has failed. That moment when unexpected good happens and there is nothing you can do, but laugh. Sheer joy and hope expressed.
The promise of the past is the promise of the future on the cusp of being fulfilled. Remembering the past to reshape the present and the future.
Our hope, through our tears, is that the desert will bloom and the barren will be made fruitful. God can work in an instant.
Often, however, only after the long winter or the never-ending drought, does God work in his time. Working through the labor and struggle of the faithful hand does God bless the harvest.
If we do not sow through the despair and the melancholy we often will not sow at all. Tears do not need to be the enemy, the preventer of our labors. Rather they can be the companion that waters the seeds as we sow them. The tears bring the growth and enable the harvest.
Though tears give growth, they will be traded for eternal life and laughter.
Psalm 126
Ben Loos
A memory of past laughter and a promise of a tearless future.
They are remembering the past of a deliverance and joy. They are using this for strength to have hope for the current situation.
When everything seems lost and hope has failed. That moment when unexpected good happens and there is nothing you can do, but laugh. Sheer joy and hope expressed.
The promise of the past is the promise of the future on the cusp of being fulfilled. Remembering the past to reshape the present and the future.
Our hope, through our tears, is that the desert will bloom and the barren will be made fruitful. God can work in an instant.
Often, however, only after the long winter or the never-ending drought, does God work in his time. Working through the labor and struggle of the faithful hand does God bless the harvest.
If we do not sow through the despair and the melancholy we often will not sow at all. Tears do not need to be the enemy, the preventer of our labors. Rather they can be the companion that waters the seeds as we sow them. The tears bring the growth and enable the harvest.
Though tears give growth, they will be traded for eternal life and laughter.
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