Movie Clip: Pay it forward 29:44 – 33:40

Last week we started a new series on marriage and we said that when we come into marriage with a great big I and we can’t help that because all we have is me, myself and I, and so we walk down the aisle saying to our selves, “I imagine it’s going to be this way and I hope it’s going to be this way, and I’m hoping and imagining that she’s going to be this way and our marriage is going to work this way and it’s going to function that way. We walk down the aisle with a big box of dreams, desires, and wishes and we say “I do”

In our box of dreams, wishes and desires, there’s ideas about how the money’s going to be made and how it’s going to be spent and how we’re going to make financial decisions. And we have dreams, wishes and desires about when we’re going to start a family and have our first kid in the first year, or the first five years, or, well, maybe there’s enough kids in the world all ready. Or we dream about what my wife will come to bed in, but she’s dreaming that it doesn’t really matter what she comes to bed in, because he’s going to love me for who I am.

There’s wishes hopes and desires like we’ll start in a small house, but then we’ll move into a bigger one before our kids are born, and you have ideas about what that house is going to look like and what color it will be and whether it will have a white picket fence or a barnyard full of animals, and you dream about what kind of car you’re going to drive and someday, she’s going to or he’s going to start their own business and work as this or as that.

I mean we all do this. It’s natural. We all come into marriage with a big box full of hopes, dreams, wishes, and desires and we take that big box of desires and we walk up to the alter and we say “I do”. Of course you do, because there’s only you at that point, but from that point on, it’s not about I, it’s about “We” and how do you make that work with two big I’s with two big boxes of desires hopes and dreams.

But here’s the deal and this is where we’re going. A Christian marriage is not a marriage where you throw Bible darts. Do you know what a bible dart is? A Bible dart is saying to your spouse, well the Bible says that you’re supposed to love me unconditionally – swisht! Ohhhhh. Well that’s nothing, the bible says that you’re supposed to submit! Ohhhhhh!

Christian marriage isn’t where you use the Bible to control the other person’s behavior. You know what that is? That’s just an I marriage with a cross hanging around it’s neck. That’s what that is. That’s not a Christian marriage. That’s an I marriage all over again where they’re using the Bible to convict and control the other person.

A Christian marriage answers this question, “What does my spouse owe me?” They owe me nothing. And if that scares you, I understand that. And if that bothers you, because you’re not sure how that works out practically, then I’m glad you’re here to hear it.  But that’s the answer to the question if you want to have a Christian marriage.

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The below texted version of this message is basically a word for word duplicate of Andy Standley’s series called I marriage. The message that was given at our church was my edited version of this text with additions, changes and deletions. I give Andy Stanley all the credit for this message series. My intention of posting it is to give God the glory, and so that it might be used to build up His Church.

Hi, for the next 3 weeks we are going to be talking about marriage. And if you’re like most couples, the wife, she’s really excited that we’re going to be talking about marriage, but the husband, he doesn’t really want to talk about marriage. Women often times want to talk about it and understand how it should work. Guys on the other hand don’t want to understand it, they just want it to work.

Women will drive a car until it breaks down and the mechanic will say to her, didn’t you hear a horrible metallic clicking sound and the woman will say yeah. Well, the mechanic says to her, if you had brought the car to me when that began it would have went a whole lot better, but now it’s really going to cost you.

Women want their car to work, they just don’t want to work on them. They just drive them until they break down. Men on the other hand, don’t like to work on relationships. We want our marriage to work, but we don‘t want to work on it . We’d sometimes rather drive it until it breaks down and then trade it in on a new one, instead of fix it.

So here’s the deal, we want our marriages to work and we don’t want them to break down, and we don’t want to trade them in, because that’s not God’s plan for our lives and it’s not good for anybody.

Marriage is much more important then your car’s maintenance and so this morning we’re going to start a three week series devoted to marriage. Read the rest of this entry »

No Message given

5-9-10 Lost

 Have you ever lost something that was valuable? Have you ever lost something that you treasured? Have you every lost something that you stopped everything that you were doing in order to search for what was lost

 I was working in Puerto Rico when I realized that I had lost my wedding ring. That ring was one of the most important possessions that I had because it had been with me every day, and every moment of my married life and to me it symbolized all the goodness and the blessing that God had given me through my wife, Shannon. I was just sick thinking about the loss. I went crazy looking for it. Have you ever lost something valuable?

 Have you ever lost your wallet or your purse, or maybe a lot of money? When Faith was young she lost her purse in a department store. We were all sick because she had all the money that she had in the world in that purse. We looked everywhere for it.

 Have you ever lost your car keys? Those are pretty valuable aren’t they? Especially if they are the only ones you have? You go through the house, the pockets in your coats, your pants pockets, check all the counters, the dressers and when you don’t find them there, you get a bit desparate, where in the world could they have gone. You tear the place apart looking for them because they’re lost and you need to find them.

 A salesman that Shannon works with lost his Day Planner. This Salesman had all his appointments, all his contact names in it, everyone’s birthday in it, it had everything on every client that he saw and he lost it. He was just sick. He backtracked the countryside looking for his planner. He tore apart his car, his office, everything that he owned until, three . . . days . . .later another office staff person found it where he had already looked three times.

 Have you ever lost a possession that was really valuable to you, something that was very important to you? How did you feel when that happened? For me it’s like everything else becomes less important. When I lose something valuable everything else stops, becomes less important, takes a back seat to finding that which is lost.

 One day Jesus said some really unusual words. He said, “the Son of Man, Jesus is talking about himself here. the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Luke 19:10 (NIV) 

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4-4-10 Easter – Peace 

Movie clip: Lord of the Rings 2 - at beginning of the movie – Gandolf fighting the dragon

Are you ever fearful? Are you ever afraid? Do you worry much? Do you ever have anxiety? Do you ever have conflict with your spouse or your children or your parents, or your boss, or your friends? Do you ever fear not being good enough or not making enough? Do you fear losing your job, your spouse, or your kids?

We sometimes live on fear more than anything else. We get so used to fear that we’re not even aware, because it is so normal for us to fear. We often only recognize our fears when they exceed the normal.

My question to you this morning is “Would you like it if you could live your life without fear? Would you like it if you truly, in your life had nothing to fear? Would you want to trade your life for a new life if, in the new life you only had peace despite all the conflict and chaos and uncertainty that was going on around you? What would you say if I told you that you were created to live that way? In God’s plan for your life, you and I were created to live that way.

Now, I have to be honest with you, I’m not sure if you or I can completely, 100 percent experience that on this side of eternity, but I do know this, you and I can a whole lot of peace, great mountains of peace on this side of eternity even in the midst of all the conflict, chaos and uncertainty and it was made possible by Jesus at Easter. That’s where we’re going today.

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 As a congregation we haven’t ever had a Good Friday message. We always move from Palm Sunday to Easter, so today, I’d like us to imagine that it’s Good Friday. In order to make this more powerful, I need your help.

I am going to read off a series of questions and if you answer any of those questions with a yes, I’d like you to stand up. Nothing will be asked or required of you, except that you vote by standing up. This is a safe place. We value each of you and would never do anything to diminish your value, your significance. If you can answer any of the following questions with “Yes” then please stand up. We’ll start off with a couple of easy ones to help you get the feel of it.

1. If you’re a human being please stand up?
2. If you brush your teeth, please stand up?
3. If you have ever felt rejected, betrayed, or abandoned please stand up?
4. If you’ve ever felt like you had a friend, but then they did something and it hurt really bad, and you felt betrayed, rejected or abandoned by that friend then please stand up?
5. If you’ve ever had a parent who you thought they were going to be there for you, but you were mistaken, because they weren’t, then please stand up?
6. If you’ve ever had a spouse who you tried to love with all your heart, but at some point you felt like they rejected you, betrayed you, or abandoned you.
7. If you’ve ever felt like a brother or a sister rejected, betrayed, or abandoned you when you needed them, then please stand up?
8. If you’ve ever felt like you were betrayed, rejected or abandoned by a church or by a religious leader, please stand up.
9. If you’ve ever felt betrayed by our government or a political party, the please stand up?
10. Please stand up if you’ve ever felt alone or isolated and at that time it felt like nobody cared?

Thank you for your help.

If we are human and if we are honest, we have all been rejected, betrayed, and abandoned by others, often times by those whom we love the most. Rejection and betrayal are powerful evils that leave deep hurt in our soul. How should we respond to such powerful evil, because as unfortunate as it is, it’s likely that we’re going to feel betrayed again? How shall we respond to such powerful hurt? What is the right response to these feelings? Why is Good Friday so good? How does what happened 2000 years ago deeply affect the way we live our lives today?

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 How many of you have ever been to a wedding? If you have been at a wedding, then you may have heard these words that Paul writes to the Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind, It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” It goes on, but it ends this way, “And now these three remain: Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13).

Faith, Hope and love are like the trinity of the soul. They are essential for life. We talk a lot about love and we talk regularly about faith, but the idea of hope is not talked about much, so I’d like to ask you a few questions to get us tracking in that direction this morning.

Did you know that hope is very important for life? People with little hope get depressed. The less hope they have the more depressed they get. Did you know that people who feel hopeless often commit suicide? Without hope people die on the inside. Our innermost being dies without hope. People who commit suicide die on the inside first.

Have you ever thought about our need for hope? Hope is essential for life. Without hope something inside us dies. Hope is so essential to life that people can’t live without it. For you and I hope is as necessary for life as food, water, or air.

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How many of you occasionally or normally feel stressed? Would you raise your hands? How many of you would say that you occasionally or regularly drive over the speed limit because you’re late or because you don’t have enough time? How many of you wish you had more time to spend with the people that you love.” How many would say that?

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Last week we looked at a passage where the Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Timothy a new pastor and Paul said to Timothy, “Command all those who are rich in this present world . . .” (1 Timothy 7:17) and we camped out on the idea that rich is a moving target.

We said that you’ve never open a paycheck at 3:00 on Friday afternoon and have it say, “You’re rich!” That will never happen, because rich is a moving target. And so people who are rich never know that they are rich, so they keep trying to get rich, and never get good at being rich.

We said that a poll was taken to determine what rich was and people who made less than $30,000 said that if they made $74,000 a year or more, then they would be rich, but if you asked people who made $74,000 a year or more they would tell you that they are not rich. People who made $50,000-$75,000 a year said that if they could make $200,000 a year that they would be rich, but the pollster asked people who made $200,000 a year if they considered themselves rich and they said “No”, and then they pointed at people who made $500,000 and said “They’re rich!” And on it went. Rich, they determined, was a moving target.

So, we said that if being rich is a moving target and people never really consider themselves rich, then they would never learn how to honor God with their wealth.  Lastly, we said that if you make $37,000 or more then you are in the top 4 percent of all wage earners in the world and if you make $45,000 or more that you are in the top 1 percent of all wage earners in the world. We said last week that many of us in this room are rich because we are in the top wage earners in the world, but here’s the deal. We don’t feel rich, and since we don’t feel rich, we don’t think that we’re rich, so we keep trying to get rich and never begin to act rich.

Here’s the question we left you with last week. If you make $37,000 a year or more, you are rich. I am rich. But here’s the question, “Why don’t we feel rich?” Why don’t you feel rich?

I mean, how many of you would say that you occasionally or maybe even often have financial stress in your lives? Would you raise your hands if that’s true for you? I want you to look around and see how normal this is. This is what the world calls normal. In our culture, financial stress is completely normal. Living paycheck to paycheck in our culture is completely normal. Having monthly payments normal – debt normal, worry, anxiety, fear around money – especially in a slowed economy is normal. Having financial fights if you’re married, is very, very normal in our culture.

Sadly, in our culture, having little or no margin is normal. The reason I don’t like normal finances in America is because normal is not working. Normal doesn’t give us that (Vision Banner: Heaven on Earth).

Financial margin is the amount available beyond what is necessary. Margin is the amount available beyond what is necessary. Financial margin is a simple math problem. It’s the difference between what we have versus what we need. So let’s put it into real numbers. If I make $500 a week and my bills are $400, then I have $100 margin for that week. If you earn $3000 a month and you spend $3000 a month, then you have how much margin? Zero, Zip, Natta!

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How many of you would like to be rich? Maybe you bought a lottery ticket yesterday, or maybe you found a lottery ticket yesterday on the ground, and today they read off the numbers and Eureka, Hot Dog, you are rich!!!! How many of you would like it if that happened? But then here’s the question, “What kind of rich person would you be?

Maybe you’ve known rich people in the past or maybe you’ve seen them on TV and so many of them are arrogant or rude or extremely selfish, even greedy, and you might have thought to yourself, if I was rich like them, I wouldn’t be like that. I would be more generous with my money if I was them, right? What kind of rich person would you be?

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