Jeremy Hoover

Joey and I spent four hours today working on the slides for Sunday. This is our first Sunday with the new projector and we've put a lot of effort into creating slides to go along with sermon. Today we practiced with the slides. These are the notes we took as we updated slides, created new ones, and went through the presentation for Sunday.

Sermon Slide Notes

You probably receive value from your church experience...but are you adding value?

In recent posts I've discussed how our intake of scripture doesn't automatically correspond to a growing faith. One of my examples was church members who have sat through over 4,000 bible studies but have not evidenced a changed life.

Leaving aside whether I would actually know if a person's life has changed or been transformed, I want to clarify that in my example, I am not referring to the preacher or the deliverer of content. I am not implying that if someone has sat through 4,000 bible changes and has not been changed that it is somehow the preacher's fault. It may be, and each preacher needs to ask whether they are putting in the proper time for study and preparation and attempting to creatively engage the listening congregation with the biblical material.

What I mean is, you will be your only barometer for whether your scripture intake is contributing to your growing faith or whether you are merely listening as an aspect of attending a bible study so you can check it off your list.

Specifically, to grow in your faith during a bible study, you must focus on the quality of your reception of the word, rather than the quantity of studies that you take in.

Here's the difference: you may listen intently, absorb the word, and create an action point from each bible study you participate in. This is focusing on quality: you are participating, contributing, and growing in your faith. Even though you are still doing things as a result of your study (and thus susceptible to a checklist approach), your main focus is to be obedient to God as he reveals things to you through his word. It doesn't matter how many studies you sit through because in each one, if approached with this attitude, you will find something to help you grow, regardless of whether the preacher/teacher is outstanding or is merely mediocre.

But if your understanding of being a good Christian requires you to attend bible studies because that's what Christians do, you are less likely to grow. Your emphasis will be on the quantity of lessons you hear, rather than the quality of your reception of those lessons.

Focus on the quality of your scripture intake (make quality) rather than the quantity of it in order to grow in Christ.

Some of you know that I have accounts on both Facebook and Twitter. I really enjoy and get a lot of value from both sites.

If you don't know what they are, Facebook is a networking site that mainly connects you with people you know and or have known in the past. You have complete control over how you connect to these people, if you do at all. You connect with "friends" in your "network" (those whom you have given permission to connect with you) by sharing links you have found online, pictures you have taken, "notes" that you write, and status updates that allow you to post thoughts and updates about what you are doing.

You can check out part of my Facebook profile here. If you're already on Facebook, send me a friend request.

Twitter is a different beast for networking a different way. Twitter allows you to send short headline-like messages of only 140 characters each. You share information, ideas, questions, and connect with "followers" via short snippets of conversation. Twitter is public, although you have the option of maintaining a private page.

Check out my Twitter page here and if you are on Twitter, "follow" me and I'll follow you back

You may have guessed where I'm going with this post. Can two web services really teach us anything about Christianity? Yes they can!

Facebook and Twitter teach us that you only get out of them what you are willing to put in.

I have many Facebook friends and Twitter followers who started an account, maintained it for about a week, and dropped out. Sometimes they're too busy to maintain an account, sometimes they realize it's just not for them in the phase of life they're in, and sometimes they can't be bothered to put the effort in at all. Thus, they don't keep connected to those with whom they are connected.

Other friends and followers maintain their accounts but do very little sharing. When you go their "wall" (Facebook) or the profile page (Twitter) you see a lot abou them but very little interaction with the community that surrounds them. These people are getting value for themselves but not giving value back to the community.

My point is this: What value are you adding to the church community you are part of? Or do you merely attend services and meeting without keeping in contact with church members outside of those meetings? Are you looking to receive value (be served) from church members without giving back (serving others)?

There are online social networks and there are offline social networks. Facebook and Twitter are examples of online social networks. Your church and community of friends are examples of your offline social networks. Seek to add value, to serve, to provide input, and to stay connected both online and offline.

Nathan Creitz, who runs a great blog called ChurchETHOS, published an article written by yours truly called "Checklist Christianity vs. Following Jesus." It's a reworking of an older article I wrote for this blog. You can find the older article here.

Support Nathan (and me!) by going to his site, reading my article, then reading some of his!

[The sermon MP3 is available for download at the bottom of this post.]

The presence of God is a major theme in the Old Testament. God was with Israel as they wandered through the wilderness in the form of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Eventually they built a tent for God to dwell in, and it came to be known as the "tent of meeting." Eventually, King David looked around at the beautiful palace he lived and was a little embarrassed to realize that God still lived in a tent.

So instead of simplifying his residence he proposed building a great house for God to live in as well. But God had a different idea, and he told David it would be his son (Solomon) who would build a house for God.

Solomon built the Temple. And when the ark of the covenant was placed in the Temple, the glory of the Lord filled it. God had a home.

But Israel turned from God (you know the story) and finally, after many centuries, was defeated and destroyed, ultimately by Babylon. As part of the destruction, Babylon destroyed the Temple. But God was long gone--he had deserted the Temple because of the impurity of the people (Ezekiel 10).

Suddenly, after a long period of silence, Jesus appears on the scene. One day, he goes to the (rebuilt but God-less) Temple and is disgusted at what he finds there. So he grabs a whip, turns over tables and runs the merchants out. The Jews are understandably frustrated. They demand to know under what authority he does this.

So Jesus answers them. He tells the the sign he will give them to prove his authority is that he will rebuild "this temple" in three days after they destroy it. They thought he was talking about the physical temple, but Jesus was talking about his body, which means he was telling them that the authority by which he did these things was from God--because God's presence was in him! (John 2:13-22)

Ultimately, Jesus was killed. But he did what he said and raised the "temple" in three days. And when his disciples gathered around him, he told them to wait in Jerusalem for the "gift" his Father promised. He connects that gift with Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4, 8). The apostles received that gift on Pentecost (Acts 2), and those who were baptized on that day also received it (Acts 2:38-39), as do all those who are baptized into Christ.

What's so important about the gift of the Holy Spirit? A few scriptures give us some clues:

In Ephesians 1:13-14 Paul teaches us that the Spirit, which we received when we believed, marks us with a seal that guarantees our inheritance and redemption.

He also teaches in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19 that the Spirit of God is even more--because God's Spirit lives in us, we are the new temples of God, individually and as the church.

What a radical idea! God no longer lives in a building (even a church building), because we are the building God lives in. God's glory is in us!

Which begs this question: If God's glory resides in the temple that is you, are others seeing God's glory in that temple?

Sermon: The Spirit of God is in YOU

On Sunday we'll be looking at how the Temple functioned religiously for Jews in the Old Testament period. We'll also be examining how God's presence was available to believers in both the Old and New Testament periods.

The Temple was important because it came to be the place where God lived, where his presence was available to the Israelites. But when the Temple was destroyed, God left (Ezekiel 10).

How is God's presence available to us today?

Well, God doesn't live in a building anymore (as much as we would like him to).

He doesn't live in a building anymore because...

He lives in you!

Sermon Notes: The Temple and God's Presence

There are two emphases in Jesus' teaching: loving God and loving others. We often do really well with the first but not always so well with the second. How can you better care for others as you love them with the love of God?

We'll be going through the Gospel of Matthew as a church this summer during the Sunday morning bible studies and sermons. Starting in July, we'll have 9 weeks (through August) and we've broken up Matthew into 9 sections. Each section corresponds to a "choice" that the gospel calls us to as followers of Jesus. We are also producing a book that will tie-in with this series.

Joey Whelan and I spent most of yesterday planning this series. I don't want to give away too much information, but below are planning boards we created to clarify and outline our thinking. (Picture quality is not great; there was a lot of glare and we used webcams to take the pictures.)

CHOICES outline

Branch outline of half of the story

Why do we make doing God's will so difficult? Why do we find God's will to be so confusing?

It's not God's fault! He makes his will pretty clear in scripture. In Micah (6:8), he tells us that all he requires is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with him. In 1 Thessalonians (5:16-18), Paul tells us that God's will is for us to "rejoice always; pray continually; and give thanks in all circumstances."

But if you're anything like me, God's will has always been presented to you as mysterious, something that you hope to stumble upon and then hope that you stay on.

I think the confusion comes in because we try to get ahead of God. We try to lead God instead of follow him. In Judges 10-12, Jephthah leads Israel to a great victory because he was empowered by God's Spirit. But he couldn't bring himself to simply follow God, he had to get ahead of God.

Even though he had God's Spirit leading him to victory he made a vow to God that if God would deliver Israel then Jephthah would offer a burnt sacrifice to God of the first thing that came out of his house when he returned. When he returned home, the first thing he saw was his only daughter...and he sacrificed her, becoming the pagan idolater he sought to deliver.

Instead of cooperating with God and God's Spirit to do God's will, he tried to lead God, to get ahead of God, to make God do what he thought God should do.

You also are empowered by God's Spirit to do his will (Acts 2:38-39; Eph. 1:14; 1 Cor. 3:16; 1 Cor. 6:19). Cooperate with him through the spiritual disciplines of loving him and others, acting justly, loving mercy, walking humbly with him, rejoicing always, praying continually, and giving thanks in all things. God will lead you. And when he leads, follow him.

Sermon: Doing God's Will (Judges 10-12; Jephthah)