The people of New Community go into Lawton and the surrounding communities on the 3rd Saturday of each month and serve the people and businesses there. We regularly meet legitimate needs in our communities and sometimes, just for the goodness of it, give things away to bless people. There’s enough bad in the world. Each month, as a community, we strive to bring a bit of good back into our world. We usually meet at 10:00 in the parking lot on the North side of Adam’s hardware.

Our high school and middle school youth generally meet the 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. for a time of fun, food, and spiritual engagement.

Big Idea: Apart from God, our stomach shrivels up and we die; apart from God our soul shrivels up and dies. We have two stomachs (voids). One stomach hungers for physical bread; the other for the bread of heaven. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life”.

What are you hungry for this afternoon? A good steak? Maybe Johnsonville Brats on the grill and a cold beer? Or maybe it’s dessert – it doesn’t matter what kind, just as long as it’s got chocolate in it? What are you hungry for?

Several months back I received a vision from God. I’ve had only a few visions in my lifetime, this being the second one and they always startle and stun me, because they come out of left field, when you least expect them.

This vision was one of those that started me and it certainly came out of left field. The vision was much of what you just saw. The vision was of a husband and wife that were hungry for one another. They were passionate for one another. They were in a hurry to get rid of anything that was between them. They wanted to get close, very, very close and in a hurry.

At this time, God said to me, “I want you to be hungry for me like that husband and wife is hungry for one another. I want you to be passionate for me like that couple is passionate for one another. I want you to get rid of everything that would separate you and I, so that we can get really close. That was the vision. It shook my world.

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You’ve all been given a peace of paper and a pencil. Take that out right now and write down a couple of numbers. Write down the year in which you were born on the left side of your paper. You can cover this up if you want to, but write down the year in which you were born, and then make a little dash, and then over here, on the right side write down 20_?_ and then you can make a question mark, because that’s the day your life’s going to stop, and we don’t know when that is. Okay?

So write that down, and I’ll write my year of birth up here…(laughter) just wanted to see if you were all paying attention. This is how old my kids think I am!

Now here’s the deal. Every one of us has one of these dates (birth date). It’s kind of a mystery; we remember and celebrate this day each year when it comes around. And, every one of us is going to have one of these dates (dates that we die) also. We don’t like to think about this one very much, but it’s coming. You have no control over this first date. Nobody asked you when you wanted to be born, or whether you wanted to be born; ready or not, you came. And you don’t have very much control over this last date here. But this little dash-this is yours. You will decide what you’re going to do with this.

Have any of you noticed this part of your life (the dash) just seems to go by faster and faster with each passing year? There’s a verse in Psalm 90 where Moses says to God,

Teach us to number our days, because we don’t know how to do that very well. so that we might gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Help us to use this (the dash) in a way that really matters, in a way that counts. Because God invites us to make our little dash a part of what he is doing, because then up there will come down here in our lives and in the lives of those that we touch.

It’s one of the great images in the Bible: Paul’s in prison and his little dash is going to end any day. And his prayer is this. He says:

Pray for us, too, he says to the people, that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly this mystery, this gospel, this news of Jesus-as clearly as I should. (Colossians 4:3-4)

Now, it’s very moving to me to think of Paul in chains, in prison. He doesn’t know when he’s going to die. His little dash could end any day, but he says, “Pray for me”-not “for my survival,” not “for my safety,” not “that I’d be released from prison,” not “for my comfort” He says, “Pray for open doors, open doors,” just “God, give me another open door, give me another open door into somebody’s heart, so that I can share about your goodness.”

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