Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

Today's message is just for those in the kingdom.  If you are outside the Lord's kingdom, you have enough hard work of believing to do.

It addresses how we are to relate to the big people and the little people in the church.  Pastors and Poopers if you will.  Those who poop in their pants.  

Honor love serve.  In big ways and in the littlest way possible.  Participate in the Lord's mutual aide society.  

Be a joy to your Pastor.  Be a joy to someone who poops in their pants.  

Finding your Life is a bad thing in todays passage.  It is a recipe for loss.
Pursuit and even attaining things or people or power or beauty or profit or profession or pleasure apart from the One who made us and made us for Him is loss.

The way to find is by losing, yielding.  

Recently, I had an epic battle with a tree.  I use that lesson to provide a little picture of what this passage is saying.  Listen and find out.  

Jesus rock the rainbows and puppy world with a shocking, even disturbing image:  His followers carrying a cross as they follow Him.  Jesus is now done with His cross.  He has defeated death and sin.  That is not what our crosses are about.  They are about will and yielding and agreeing.

First, consider the alternatives.  Most of us tried a few alternatives.  How'd that work out for you.  Nope.  These led to death.

Second, we are surprised to find the cross carriers with big fat smiles on their faces.  Joyful.  What are they doing jumping around?  Listen and find out.

Jesus speaks brutally in today's passage.  If this is all you know about being a Christian, not a single person would sign up.  Jesus would have no followers.  He would have no worthy followers.

To emphasize the point He rattles our relationships with family, our relationship with the world, our value, whether we matter like last time.  And if that wasn't enough, HE GOES THERE, He mentions the unmentionable, He speaks the unspeakable:  the cross.

Buckle your seatbelts.  Today is a rough ride.  

We are exploring, even quantifying exactly how valuable I am. 

Ok, more than house wrens.  I get that.
Ok, more than goats.  I get that.

Because of our value, we must steward that value.  
Those that don't need to be punished by our government .

God's activity over the millennia demonstrates our value.
But the real point of today lofts into poetry.  Listen and wait for it from Isaiah 5:7

We wake today asking questions that every human has asked.
Do I matter?
Do Others matter?
Am I of value?
How did I get to be of value?
What is it that gives me value?
Exactly how valuable am I?  Can you quantify it for me?

God answers these questions using a creature that weighs 3/4th  of an ounce full grown.  Sparrow (house wren) Lives Matter.  Ridiculous! And you are of ridiculously more value than them.

Yes, you are valuable.  You matter.  You are seen.  You are valuable TO ME.  I give you value.  I came down for you.  

Listen to our story of the house wren.

How does the Lord usually speak to us?

Last episode we established it is generally through His Word.  He's gone to great trouble to get the Bible into our hands. (and the Spirit into our stoney hearts! but that is another story)

He speaks in the darkness.  Figuratively and literally.
He speaks in whispers usually rather than sonic spiritual booms.

Let's listen this morning.

How is it that we know about God and eventually know God Himself?  Today, it is primarily by His word.  How is it that we get to wake up and meet God in His Bathrobe and have a conversation, or a wrestling match, or a conviction, or a joy, or a plea?  It is primarily through HIS WORD.

And sorry, I don't speak Greek and Hebrew.  So I will be needing a bit of help there.  Can somebody please translate accurately, from the original languages, into my favorite language: ENGLISH?  Well, it was illegal and punishable by death to do so.  But William Tyndale did it anyway and and they strangulated, burned and exploded him for the crime.   

In doing so, Tyndale fulfills his promise:  "I will cause a boy that dirveth the plough, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost".  Now I don't exactly drive a plow, but I did MOW MY LAWN yesterday...

We encounter Father's Day this Day.
We greet the day with thankfulness.
We greet the day with admiration
We greet the day with image bearing
Some greet the day with grief
We greet the day from a long line of physical fathers
We greet the day from a long line of spiritual fathers
Fathers are those who are demonstrating GODLY characteristics
Be of good cheer.  you are IMAGE BEARING when you father.
And in all of this, most intimately, HE IS WITH US in all of this.
Listen as we appreciate this godly and Godly day.

God in His Bathrobe.  Knucklehead in Green Chair Genesis 32:26

So you have a completely unqualified podcaster.  How can anyone be qualified to stand before perfect incandescent holiness?  Or at least, and here is the beauty, I am no more qualified than you are.  Let that be an encouragement to you.

So why listen to this particular knucklehead?  Two that I can think of:
One is tenacity, curiosity, and the willingness to keep going until He blesses.
Two is intimacy, knowledge OF Him rather than ABOUT Him.  The Be-With-Me part of this.  There is a place for this in your life.  There is a place for this in the church today.

I can't WAIT to get out of bed in the morning and have a cup of coffee with God in my bathrobe.  Too, I think God cannot wait to put His holy bathrobe on, fire up His coffee maker, and to meet this knucklehead in the green chair.