Words Matter

We must not acquiesce in the contemporary disenchantment
with words. Words matter. They are the building blocks of
sentences by which we communicate with one another. And
the gospel has a specific content. That is why it must be
articulated, verbalized. Of course it can and must be
dramatized too. For images are sometimes more powerful
than words. Yet images also have to be interpreted by
words. So in all our evangelism, whether in public
preaching or in private witnessing, we need to take trouble
with our choice of words.

--From John Stott, "The Message of Thessalonians"

Prepare to enjoy

I just secured bob ausband, the baddest old dude in GNV, to read scripture to us during communion to use on sunday

Miss a game, make a memory

I'm talking @ FIU game on Nov 21

Update

http://documents.christcommunitychurch.com/October%202009%20Newsletter.pdf

A.W. Tozer

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts @ God that are unworthy of Him.

New to Christ Community?

Come 9am Sunday to our Next Step Class

More info at www.christcommunitychurch.com

.

Background music for Fall Festival

Fall Festival Scene

Thanks Perrys!

IMG00724.jpg

Fall Festival

Come out Sunday 4pm! Share the love and bring friends.

new switchfoot song

hear it

MESS OF ME
I am my own affliction
I am my own disease
There ain't no drug that they could sell
Ah, there ain't no drugs to make me well

There ain't no drugs
It's not enough
There ain't no drugs
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me, I wanna get back the rest of me
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I've made a mess of me, I wanna reverse this tragedy
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

We lock our souls in cages
We hide inside our shells
It's hard to feed to the ones you love
Oh when you can't forgive yourself
Yeah forgive yourself!

There ain't no drugs
There ain't no drugs
There ain't no drugs
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me, I wanna get back the rest of me
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I've made a mess of me, I wanna reverse this tragedy
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

AHHHHHHOOOOO!

There ain't no drug
There ain't no drug
There ain't no drug
No drugs to make me well
There ain't no drug
It's not enough
We're breaking up
The sickness is myself
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me, I wanna get back the rest of me
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I've made a mess of me, I wanna reverse this tragedy
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

the path from big building to office building

 

windows in classrooms; stucco

 

Receive from God, Give to Others

God intends every church to be like a sounding board,
bouncing off the vibrations of the gospel, or like a
telecommunications satellite which first receives and then
transmits messages. In fact, this is God's simplest plan
for world evangelization.

John Stott --From "The Message of Thessalonians" (The Bible Speaks
Today series: Leicester: IVP, 1991), p. 43.

Some of you asked for this--

When Jill was pregnant with Kim, she thought of the Old Testament psalm that says, "The Lord will keep you from all harm" (121:7). But then God gave us a "harmed" daughter. We didn't understand why. Thinking about that promise made Jill feel even worse. It hurt to hope.
When God gave us Kim, he gave us something we loved very much but couldn't control. She constantly drained our reserves. Jill and I are naturally quick, confident - and judgmental. Once, before Kim was born, Jill was washing the car in our driveway and our neighbor passed on the sidewalk. A young mother herself, she said to Jill, "I don't know how you have the strength to do everything that you do." Jill replied, "If you're organized, you can get a lot done. You should try it." Years ago, I was in downtown Philadelphia with a friend, and a street person passed us. He slurred out something incomprehensible to me, and I dismissed him. As we were walking away my friend asked me, "Why did you talk to him like that? He just wanted to know where the soup kitchen was."
I smile at the work of God displayed in our lives, at God's sense of humor. Jill and I have spent countless hours with Kim doing speech therapy, helping her articulate her slurred words. I've spent hundreds of hours programming Kim's speech computer, which she is very proficient at. Jill no longer has time to be organized. When I ask her where some money has gone, she smiles at me and tells me that she doesn't know. She has sworn off being organized. She just can't do it anymore.
God gave us Kim to keep us from all harm - to keep us from being so self-righteous and "together." God used Kim to bring us to the end of ourselves, to teach us about love, and to teach us about himself. Our lives no longer worked - we had to learn how to live from the bottom up. Like the blind man, we found glory in a most unexpected place.


Excerpt from "Love Walked Among Us"
Author, Paul Miller

Goin' to Starkville

1985 Gators beat Miss State in Starkville, 36-22. I was there. 18 years old, dead as a doornail spiritually. Not loving or really caring about Jesus.

the gators haven't won there since then.

This saturday i plan to be in the stadium and I will take a moment and bump my chest twice and point to heaven to say, "Jesus, I'm glad you reached me."

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us: we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

Sunday i referenced that quote from CS Lewis.

did some research on it y'day:
the quote is from one of his letters, written to the Reverend Peter Bide on April 29th, 1959. Bide was the Anglican priest who did a 'laying on of hands' healing for Joy Lewis in 1957, and he was also the one who performed the religious wedding of Jack and Joy Lewis (they had earlier had a civil wedding). In 1959 Bide's wife was diagnosed with cancer, and he wrote Jack Lewis to ask him to pray for her. The quote comes from Lewis' response. Oddly, the letter is not in the new three volume C. S. Lewis Collected Letters edited by Walter Hooper, but is in the old (1966) one volume Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited by Warnie Lewis.

C. S. Lewis wrote:

Indeed, indeed we both will. I don't see how any degree of faith can exclude the dismay, since Christ's faith did not save Him from dismay in Gethsemane. We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us: we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

Letters of C. S. Lewis

Moonstruck?

verse 6

The sun shall not strike you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The 2 lines of v.6 are not only poetic parallels but use a favorite Hebrew way of expressing totality:

naming a pair of opposites to include everything between (cf. verse 8).

The Lord's protection avails against the known and the unknown; perils of day and night; the most overpowering forces and the most insidious.

Kidner on 121:3-4

in verse 3 the NOT is the one used normally for requests and commands

so this verse should be taken, not as a statement which verse 4 will virtually repeat, but as a wish or prayer, to be answered with the ringing confidence of verse 4 and all that follows.

I.e., "May He not let your foot be moved, may He . . . not slumber!"--followed by the answer,

"LOOK, He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."

little YOU is a part of God's BIG PEOPLE

ps121 verse 4 Behold! he who keepeth Israel will not slumber nor sleep. To recall each individual to the consideration of the common covenant, he represents the Divine providence as extending to the whole body of the Church. In order that each of us for himself may be assured that God will be gracious to him, it behoves us always to begin with the general promise made to all God’s people.

--John Calvin

God is affectioned towards His people

psalm 121 not only attributes power to God, but also teaches that He is so affectioned towards us, that he will preserve us in all respects in perfect safety.

--John Calvin

Constant & Countless Ways of Caring

Christians believe that life is created and shaped by God and that the life of faith is a daily exploration of the constant and countless ways in which God's grace and love are experienced.

--Eugene Peterson

Our Help Comes From God

The almighty and ever-present power of God by which He upholds, as with His hand
Heaven
and
Earth
and
All Creatures
and so rules them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and lean years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
prosperity and poverty
ALL THINGS,
in fact come to us not by chance but from His fatherly hand.

--Heidelberg Catechism #27

Psalm 121

Psalm 121, learned early & sung repeatedly in the walk with Christ, clearly defines the conditions under which we live out our discipleship--which, in a word, is God. Once we get this psalm in our hearts it will be impossible for us to gloomily suppose that being a Christian is an unending battle against ominous forces that at any moment may break through and overpower us.

Faith is NOT a precarious affair of chance escape from satanic assaults. It is the
Solid,
Massive,
Secure
Experience
of God, who keeps all evil from getting inside us, who guards our life, who guards us when we leave and when we return, who guards us now, who guards us always.

--Eugene Peterson

a little help for our friends

Announcement:

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 6:00 pm, University Auditorium:

“THE BIBLE AND AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE.”

This lecture will be given by Mark Noll, Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and leading scholar of American religious history. Noll is the author of numerous books including America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln; The Civil War as a Theological Crisis; The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind; and most recently, God and Race in American Politics. In his lecture at the University of Florida Noll will address the “problem” of the political use of Scripture in American life. He will discuss the centrality of Scripture in America’s past and will attempt to show how the Bible has been used both against and in support of public power.

The lecture is free and open to the public, and all are warmly encouraged to attend! The president of the university is scheduled to give some words of welcome. The lecture is part of the ongoing lecture series at the University of Florida: “Faithful Narratives: The Challenge of Religion in History.” [http://web.history.ufl.edu/faithful.html] For more information on this or other lectures, please contact Andrea Sterk, sterk at ufl DOT edu or Nina Caputo, ncaputo AT ufl DOT edu

The following evening, Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 pm, Noll will be speaking at the Christian Study Center of Gainesville on the topic: “The American Role in the New Shape of World Christianity: Imperialists? Partners? Bystanders?” He will also hold an informal discussion at the Study Center on Wednesday, October 21, at 4:00 pm. “Coffee and Conversation with Mark Noll: Is the Evangelical Mind Still a Scandal?”

Psalm 121 A Pilgrim Song

^1-2 I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

^3-4 He won't let you stumble,
your Guardian God won't fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel's
Guardian will never doze or sleep.

^5-6 God's your Guardian,
right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
sheltering you from moonstroke.

^7-8 God guards you from every evil,
he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
he guards you now, he guards you always.

--from THE MESSAGE

Take a look through our windows

Safe in the Shadow of the Lord, Beneath His hand and pow’r, I trust in Him, I trust in Him, My fortress and my tow’r.

part of a hymn by Timothy Dudley-Smith

thinking about Psalm 121 this week

this great old hymn--and eternal TRUTH--gets airtime Sunday

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

CCC peeps

Just bumped into Karen Griffin @ Shands. She does Occ Therapy on the 5th Floor!

Which means she works in same bldg with her sis-in-law, Elizabeth.

They are married to John and Ben, respectively.

Motyer intro

Psalms for pilgrim people

So often, the simplest way to understand something is the best.

What is possibly the loveliest single group of psalms in the whole collection, Psalms 120 – 134 describe themselves as ‘Songs of Ascents’. Like all the titles of individual psalms, this is to be taken seriously as a pointer to how the psalm in question is to be understood and used. The plural word ‘ascents’ could be what in Hebrew is called a ‘plural of magnitude’ – ‘the Great Ascent’, or it can be left as a simple plural, an ‘ascent’ that happened over and over again. Either way, it readily points to the journeys of pilgrims from all over the land ‘up’ to Jerusalem to keep the Feasts of the Lord.

This is the most direct interpretation of the title, and far less fanciful than some other suggestions that have been made. It also happens to be one that suits the psalms themselves very well, and, as we shall see, also suits the way in which they have been carefully edited into this small collection. In order to keep this in mind we will generally use the translation ‘Songs of the Ascent’ or ‘of the Great Ascent’.

Walking, running and arriving

But we must not get ahead of ourselves! Surprisingly, neither the verbs ‘to go on a pilgrimage’ and ‘to be a pilgrim’ nor the nouns ‘pilgrim’ and ‘pilgrimage’ appear in the Bible! There are five places where some translations introduce the thought, but, as far as the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New are concerned, they do so without justification. In Genesis 47:9, Exodus 6:4 and Psalm 119:54 the word means ‘sojourning’, being a temporary resident or even an overnight guest, and in Hebrews 11:13 and 1 Peter 2:11 we need a translation like ‘resident alien’ or, perhaps, ‘expatriate’.

The words of pilgrimage, then, are not used, but the pilgrim idea is deeply ingrained right through the Bible, and not only in the official sense in which what we would call pilgrimages to Jerusalem were commanded once our ancestors were settled in the Promised Land, but on the level of individual devotion. Can we avoid saying that the Lord called Abram ‘to be a pilgrim’? Hebrews 11:8 could not be clearer: Abraham was called to leave Ur of the Chaldees and he obeyed even though ‘he did not know where he was going’ – a pilgrim indeed! Reaching Canaan and learning that this was the land of promise (Genesis 17:7) did not change anything, but simply redefined Abraham’s role, for his calling was still to ‘walk before me’ (Genesis 17:1).

Presently, in connection with the psalms of the Great Ascent, we will call this ‘the pilgrimage of the heart’, our daily ‘walking with God’. It is in this way, indeed, that ‘pilgrimage’ becomes a central Bible truth. Think, for example, of the fact that, early on, Christianity was called ‘the way’; that is to say, not only a set of beliefs, nor only an unforgettable experience of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Saviour, but a pathway for life, a distinctive lifestyle, truth to be lived out, ideals to be pursued, goals to be set and striven for. Above all, a perfect Jesus to be imitated, for all these references find their root in his claim that ‘I am the way’ (John 14:6).

It is more than a bit sad that the NIV has chosen to obscure the matching metaphor of ‘walking’. After all, we say to new parents, ‘Is the baby walking yet?’ ‘Walking’ is one of the earliest and most prized signs of a properly developing life and it is no wonder that the New Testament makes full use of it in relation to Christian living. Ephesians almost hammers us with our vocation to ‘walk worthily of our calling’ (Ephesians 4:1), to ‘walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk’ (4:17), to ‘walk in love’ (5:1), to ‘walk as children of light’ (5:8), and to ‘look carefully how we walk, not as unwise but as wise’ (5:15); walking is, you see, a pretty comprehensive description of the Christian’s progress as a growing entity from infancy to adulthood, with proper, balanced development, inwardly and outwardly: a pilgrimage of conduct, character, mind and heart. We will find that the psalms of the Great Ascent speak to us of all this, in their own distinctive and uniformly lovely way.

Have you noticed the ‘golden cord’ that binds Hebrews 10, 11 and 12? Hebrews 10:39 says that ‘we are those who believe and are saved’. More literally, we are ‘of faith’. That is our hallmark – faith. Hebrews 11:1 starts, ‘now faith is . . . ’, because if faith is our central characteristic, we need to know what we are talking about. This is the point of the marvellous picture gallery of Hebrews 11: faith as seen in the lives of such a varied and instructive band. And so into Hebrews 12 where the initial ‘therefore’ alerts us to what is about to happen. The people of faith surround us like a cloud, and their testimony to what faith is, how it works, and so on, summons us to ‘run with perseverance the race marked out for us’ with our eyes fixed on Jesus. The life of faith is on the run! Pilgrims on the run! I hope I am right in seeing this, not as a picture of speed – for many of us, days of speed are long gone – but of urgency, of the need to be up and doing, so that even when the feet are unfit for the sandals of the pilgrim walk, never mind the running shoes of the athletic track, the pilgrimage of the heart is our daily preoccupation, and to fix our eyes on Jesus our moment-by-moment preoccupation.

But, before we return to the psalms, we must take a brief moment to look forward to the pilgrims’ goal. Some glad day, for us, as for the pilgrims on the great ascent, travelling days will be over and our mobile home will be exchanged for a house, but one not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1), and, in the dramatic words of Revelation 22:14 (NKJV), we will ‘enter through the gates into the city’. An elderly couple, treasured friends of mine, once qualified for tickets to one of the Queen’s garden parties. As they parked their car, a well-meaning policeman came up and, pointing to a small door, said, ‘If you like to go through there you will find yourselves in the garden and save yourselves a long walk.’ They drew themselves up to their full height, and replied: ‘We have been invited by Her Majesty. Do you really think we are going in through a back gate?’

What a day it will be when the gates swing wide, the trumpets sound, and all the bells of the heavenly city ring out in delirious celebration!

"From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s furthest coast,
Through gates of pearl stream in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Hallelujah"

That’s what walking the pilgrim way is ‘all about’. But we must get back to the psalms. …

Fall Fest Oct 25

October 25

October 25

Sunday 4pm til 7pm

Fall Festival & Chili Cookoff

More--as always-- @ www.christcommunitychurch.com

Sunday October 25

Spurgeon AM

"Against me earth and hell combine,
But on my side is power divine;
Jesus is all, and he is mine!"

Seeing our need leads us somewhere

From Paul Tripp's new book "broken down house":
"The first step to living productively in this fallen world: see we're not as good as we thought, thus more needy & vulnerable than we imagine"

That's right

Stott on The chief evangelist

Now who is to be the messenger?
The first and fundamental answer to this question is 'God
himself'. The gospel is God's gospel. He conceived it.
He gave it its content. He publishes it. The fact that he
has committed to us both 'the ministry of reconciliation'
and 'the message of reconciliation' (1 Cor. 5:18-19) does
not alter this. He acted 'through Christ' to achieve the
reconciliation and now acts 'through us' to announce it.
But he still remains himself both reconciler and preacher.
He has used other and more exalted agencies through whom
to publish salvation before partially delegating the work
to the church. Apart from Old Testament prophets, the
first herald of the gospel was an angel, and the first
announcement of it was accompanied by a display of the
glory of the Lord and greeted by the worship of the
heavenly host.
Next, God sent his Son, who was himself both the
messenger and the message. For God sent a 'word ... to
Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ' (Acts
10:36). So Jesus not only 'made peace' between God and
man, Jew and Gentile, but also 'preached peace' (Eph. 2:14-
17). He went about Palestine announcing the good news of
the kingdom.
Next, God sent his Spirit to bear witness to Christ. So
the Father himself witnesses to the Son through the Spirit.
And only now does he give the church a privileged share in
the testimony: 'and you also will bear witness' (Jn.
15:27, lit.)
It is essential to remember these humbling truths. The
chief evangelist is God the Father, and he proclaimed the
evangel through his angel, his Son and his Spirit before he
entrusted any part of the task to men. This was the order.
The church comes at the bottom of the list. And the
church's witness will always be subordinate to the
Spirit's.

--From "Our Guilty Silence" (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1967), p. 57.

Chris Hiatt

Today in sercice we announce that our friend Chris Hiatt is moving to the next phase of his life. He will end his ministry on Christmas Eve. Chris' plans for 2010 include moving to NYC and an April wedding to our own Amber Priest.

Here is the Feb 2007 post when he came on board
http://cccpastors.blogspot.com/2007/02/announcing-our-worship-intern.html

Please pray that God will bless Chris and raise up a new leader for us.

Thinking @ how communion reminds us of our future

Spurgeon AM today.

"The hope which is laid up for you in heaven."
- Colossians 1:5



Our hope in Christ for the future is the mainspring and the mainstay of
our joy here. It will animate our hearts to think often of heaven, for all
that we can desire is promised there. Here we are weary and toilworn, but
yonder is the land of rest where the sweat of labour shall no more bedew
the worker's brow, and fatigue shall be for ever banished. To those who
are weary and spent, the word "rest" is full of heaven. We are always in
the field of battle; we are so tempted within, and so molested by foes
without, that we have little or no peace; but in heaven we shall enjoy the
victory, when the banner shall be waved aloft in triumph, and the sword
shall be sheathed, and we shall hear our Captain say, "Well done, good and
faithful servant." We have suffered bereavement after bereavement, but we
are going to the land of the immortal where graves are unknown things.
Here sin is a constant grief to us, but there we shall be perfectly holy,
for there shall by no means enter into that kingdom anything which
defileth. Hemlock springs not up in the furrows of celestial fields. Oh!
is it not joy, that you are not to be in banishment for ever, that you are
not to dwell eternally in this wilderness, but shall soon inherit Canaan?
Nevertheless let it never be said of us, that we are dreaming about the
future and forgetting the present, let the future sanctify the present to
highest uses. Through the Spirit of God the hope of heaven is the most
potent force for the product of virtue; it is a fountain of joyous effort,
it is the corner stone of cheerful holiness. The man who has this hope in
him goes about his work with vigour, for the joy of the Lord is his
strength.
He fights against temptation with ardour, for the hope of the next world
repels the fiery darts of the adversary.
He can labour without present reward, for he looks for a reward in the
world to come.

Where does your help come from?

Sunday while you are processing towards the front to take communion, you will hear Arlene Neder read Psalm 121.

It reminds powerfully that God is our help and God will keep you.

Psalm 121 is a Psalm of Ascent.

good resources on psalms of ascent

Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson

The Journey by Alec Motyer

Save the date

There will be a trip to serve during SBAC Spring Break. Open to all, friendly to families.
Details frthcoming