Sleep as an antidote to Pride

What does sleep have to do with humility?

CJ Mahaney: Surprisingly a lot! Sleep is a sweet gift from God but it is also a daily reminder that we are not God. Only God “neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Psalm 121:4). Each night as I confront my need for sleep I am reminded that I am a totally dependent upon God. Sleep is a gift but it’s a humbling gift. Don’t just fall asleep tonight but seize the moment before you fall asleep to weaken pride and cultivate humility by acknowledging you are not self-sufficient, you are not the Creator. Sleep is a daily humbling reminder that we are completely dependent upon God.

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

Lately I've been celebrating, with people ranging from my 10 yr old daughter to my brother-in-law to some CCC u2ers, the goodness of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. Today, the last song, Grace, struck me:

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.

How amazing this reality is when you consider our sin and God's majestic & mysterious grace.

Whole song here

When by faith my Lord I see
Bleeding on a cross for me,
Quick my idols all depart,
Jesus gets and fills my heart. -- found in Matthew Smith song, None Among, not sure of original source

Congregational Meeting April 27

Tonight the session (the elders) of Christ Community voted to recommend to the congregation a loan for the construction of our facility. We'll vote on that April 27th at 12:15pm!

Much more to come... on the website tomorrow and in member's USPS mailboxes this Friday.

Tickets available Sunday

Matthew Smith concert is a week from today! You can pick up your $8 tickets when we gather Sunday. This will be something that any age will enjoy. It will also envision you on what it is like to be in what is called a "church facility". Our friends at Abundant Grace just moved in a few months ago and have been of invaluable help to us in our building process.

A Prayer Before Sleep

Calm me, O Lord, as You stilled the storm.

Still me, O Lord, keep me from harm.
Let all the tumult within me cease.
Enfold me, Lord, in Your peace.

* Father, bless the work that is done,
and the work that is to be.

* Father, bless the servant that I am,
and the servant that I will be.

Thou Lord and God of power,
shield and sustain me this night.

I will lie down this night with God,
and God will lie down with me;
I will lie down this night with Christ,
and Christ will lie down with me;
I will lie down this night with the Spirit,
and the Spirit will lie down with me;
God and Christ and the Spirit,
be lying down with me.

* The peace of God
be over me to shelter me,

* under me to uphold me,

* about me to protect me,

* behind me to direct me,

* ever with me to save me.

The peace of all peace be mine this night in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Sleeping well may also be part of Christian discipleship, at least in our time and place. For not only might a counter-cultural embrace of sleep witness to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things.’ A night of good sleep—a week, or month, or year of good sleep—also testifies to the basic Christian story of Creation. We are creatures, and we are creatures with bodies that are finite and contingent. The unarguable demands that our bodies make for sleep are a good reminder that we are mere creatures, not the Creator” --Lauren Winner

Sermon and Sleep

These two words are just loaded with jokes... aren't they?

Well, I'm thrilled about the opportunity and the responsibility of helping us think biblically about 1/4 of our lives!!!

The amount of time we sleep is really amazing. Why did God make us this way? How can we experience Christ's grace while sleeping? Will we sleep when we inhabit the new creation? What does it say about me if i have trouble sleeping? Is it possible to sleep sinfully? All these and more, on the blog this week and from the pulpit on Sunday, if you're awake!

Christ has done great things for his people

“That Christian who has free grace, who has free justification, who has the mediatorial righteousness of Christ, who has the satisfaction of Christ, who has the covenant of grace most constantly in his sight, and most frequently warm upon his heart—that Christian, of all Christians in the world, is most free from a world of fears, and doubts, and scruples which do sadden, sink, perplex, and press down a world of other Christians, who daily eye more what Christ is a-doing in them, and what they are a-doing for Christ, than they do eye either his active or passive obedience.

Christ has done great things for his people, and he has suffered great things for his people, and he has purchased great things for his people, and he has prepared great things for his people; yet many of his own dear people are so taken up with their own hearts, and with their own duties and graces, that Christ is little eyed by them or minded by them!

This is the great reason why so many Christians, who will certainly go to heaven—do walk in darkness, and lie down in sorrow.”

- Thomas Brooks, A Cabinet of Choice Jewels

The Limits of Our Love & The Effects of Christ's Love

“A man may love another as his own soul, yet perhaps that love of his cannot help him. He may thereby pity him in prison, but not relieve him; bemoan him in misery, but not help him; suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him. We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul. It was love that made Abraham cry, ‘O that Ishmael might live before thee!’ but it might not be. But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he willeth unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven. Love in him is properly to will good to any one: whatever good Christ by his love wills to any, that willing is operative of that good” --John Owen

A Sermon About Food?

AT first hearing it seems weird. You almost wonder... how will I come up with much to say. Then you start thinking about it... and thumbing through your bible... and you are at the other end of the spectrum saying, "a sermon about food??" ... shouldn't it be a sermon SERIES on food.

One day it may be, or at least a break-out class or seminar. Close parenthesis.

What about all the things that I simply CANNOT address in one brief sermon? As I've had discussions with people about food it seems that certain issues and ideas emerge. Each of them is, at least for some of us, loaded with emotion and questions. Read the entire post here

Oh by the way....

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the killing of MLK jr.



Here is link to U2 site where i first saw it....
Musically... John Legend's stripped-down, piano-based cover of Pride (In The Name of Love) is beautiful in its simplicity.

Enjoying God in The Ordinary....

Tomorrow we discuss "God and Our Eating"

Jonathan Edwards, Food, and Happiness

Jonathan Edwards viewed ... ( everything ) ... as the divinely appointed means of experiencing
the holy God he found so addictive to his soul.

of every possible way, in the words of his sermon on Song of Solomon
5:1, to lay his soul “in the way of allurement.”

Listen to these words of Edwards from his sermon “The Christian
Pilgrim” about the allurement he found in God:
The enjoyment of him is our highest happiness, and is the only happiness
with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to
enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations
here: better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or
the company of any or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but
God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the
sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but
drops; but God is the ocean.

This Sunday I plan to make the point that our enjoyment of food is to point us to the same joy.

Communing With God

John Owen also dismisses the all-too contemporary idea that Jesus is the loving member of the Trinity who saves us from the Father, the angry and stern member of the Trinity:

Christians walk oftentimes with exceedingly troubled hearts, concerning the thoughts of the Father toward them. They are well persuaded of the Lord Christ and his goodwill; the difficulty lies in what is their acceptance with the Father-what is his heart toward them? “Show us the Father, and it suffices us” (John 14:8). Now, this ought to be so far away, that his love (Our Father's love!!) ought to be looked on as the fountain from whence all other sweetnesses flow.

God Communicates His Glory Through All Creation

Edwards is helping me think about the gospel and our eating.

Next time you enjoy food.... remember:

God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced
in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they
only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the
understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might
communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might [be]
received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God’s
glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation
of it and his delight in it. -- Jonathon Edwards

Communion

This Sunday we will commune with each other and Christ. A word or two about communion. First, please note that this Sunday we will be passing the communion elements (bread and cup) down the aisles during our worship service. The elders recently decided that wisdom seemed to alternate monthly between passing down the aisles and "coming down front". This result, hopefully, is one that will lead to more people more often being able to experience the presence of the Risen Christ in our midst. I will try to add to this post over the next couple of days, but for now... here are a couple of positives for each method of distribution of communion.
Passing down the rows: allows reflective meditation; accommodates those that may struggle to bring themselves forward (for physical or other reasons); etc.
Coming down front: requires action/volition; more personal connection between elders and people... as people may hear their names spoken or receive prayer or an encouraging hug; etc.

The opportunity to partake together of the broken body and poured out blood of our Savior is indeed a gift from heaven. Please prayerfully prepare your heart. How? Simply, dwell on your sin and dwell MORE on your Savior. Believe the gospel of grace enough to say to God:
Show me my sin.
Where am I resisting you?
What part of your good creation have a made into an idol... and regularly "go there" for a feeling of being alive, being loved, having meaning, etc? Kill that idolatry, Jesus. Root it out by the power of your love and grace.

Show me Yourself. Your grace and glory. Free my heart to follow you in joyful surrender.

More to come...

The Dance of God

“If the beauty of what Jesus did moves you, that is the first step toward getting out of your own self-centeredness and fear into a trust relationship with him. When Jesus died for you he was, as it were, inviting you into the dance. He invites you to begin centering everything in your life on him, even as he has given himself for you.”

- Timothy Keller, The Reason for God (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 221.

Sermon Series... The Gospel and The Stuff of Life

Sunday we begin 3 weeks looking at how we spend many of our days.... eating, working, sleeping. In doing some prep work I had some folks tell me they'd never heard eating or sleeping preached on... and i was asked how i decided to do this... i'll write more later... but this quote helped me get there

“Being "Reformed" is a style of life that gives prominence to the conviction that God is creator; hence it is that we give thanks to God for the goodness that surrounds us. Secondly, it incorporates a deep and powerful sense of the fallenness of all things, understood in such a way that there is a strong impulse to resist all attempts to draw lines in the sand, with the explanation that human fallenness occurs on this side of the line and not on that side of the line. Fallenness runs throughout our entire existence—indeed, through the cosmos.
Corresponding to this comprehensive view of sin is then an equally comprehensive view of faith and salvation... In short, I think that at the heart of the Reformed tradition is a passion for totality, for wholeness, for integrity, for not allowing life to fall into bits and pieces but to constantly ask, ‘What does my faith—what does the gospel of Jesus Christ—have do with this and what does it have to do with that?’ And then never being content with the answer, ‘Nothing!’”

--Nick Wolterstorff

You Are Invited.... by Christ....

When I hear His tender invitation and see His wondrous grace,
I cannot hesitate, but must come to Thee in love.

In the supper I remember His eternal love, boundless grace,
infinite compassion, agony, cross, redemption,
and receive assurance of pardon, adoption, life, glory.
As the outward elements nourish my body,
so may Thy indwelling Spirit invigorate my soul,
until that day when I hunger and thirst no more,
and sit with Jesus at His heavenly feet. Amen.