FOUNDRYcast

Let's be honest. The human experience can be tough. It is full of ups and downs. I often think of this Calvin and Hobbes storyline where their house was broken into while out of town. Calvin is concerned because the TV was stolen. His parents are shown in the final strip, laying in bed, and talking about the whole situation. The Dad looks over to the Mom and says, "When I was a kid, I just assumed my parents had it all together. Now I know they were winging it the whole time."

I often think of this story when I think about life. The way that we move through all of our situations speaks deeply to who we are, and who we are turning into.

The Psalms have provided comfort and encouragement for thousands of years. In some ways, we see them as the book of the bible that stretches across time better than anything. We can find ourselves in the Psalms.

This Sunday we are going to think about letting the psalms be part of our road map, and we will be doing this by looking at sections out of Psalm 18. It was written by David during a time in his life when he was pursued by King Saul. The middle part of the Psalm really helps us put things into perspective.

He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemies, from those who hated me and were too strong for me. They attacked me at a moment when I was in distress, but the Lord supported me. He led me to a place of safety; he rescued me because he delights in me. The Lord rewarded me for doing right; he restored me because of my innocence. For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not turned from my God to follow evil. I have followed all his regulations; I have never abandoned his decrees. I am blameless before God; I have kept myself from sin. The Lord rewarded me for doing right. He has seen my innocence.

Psalm 18:16-24

I think life can be divided up in a few categories.

The Good. Well, we know what to do with this one. Life is great, we don't have any worries. We finger cross that it can stay like this longer than it does usually.

The Bad. We know it is coming. It always happens. For some of us it seems to happen more often. The thing is, I think the way we act and respond during these seasons tells a pretty accurate story about who we really are.

The Hopeful. In our cynical and anxious world we live in now, I think the biggest yearning we have from Jesus is not necessarily love, but hope. How does hope help us cut a straight path through the rough terrain of life?

I'm excited to have these conversations with you this weekend. Bring a friend. See you in worship.

Rev. Alan Johnson shares a message from James chapter 1 with us. He focuses on Practical Christianity and what it means to see our words as the last option.

What is God asking Foundry to do in 2020?

In this message, Chad takes the time to share where we have been in 2019, and where we feel God is asking us to focus on in the new year.

We have this conversation by asking two questions.

1. How does our new sanctuary change things?

2. How are we doing at creating followers of Jesus Christ?

It's the time of the year to talk about all of the new things. Plans, words, dreams, lists, resolutions...all of the things.

But how many of these things end up being truly new? Ask anyone in the fitness industry when their gym begins to normalize towards the end of the month.

But what are the real and true things we find in life? And when is the right time to actually find a way for things to be truly new? What if we are in the beginning of the year where we really need things to change?

A new way of doings things, a new outlook on life. A new explanation for this complicated thing we call life.

Scripture calls this a "new song" and it shows up in countless places throughout the prayerbook of scripture called Psalms. And don't doubt it for a moment, Psalms is about the absolute real human time colliding with the holy time of God. NT Wright calls it an "invitation to stand at the intersection of the different layers of time."

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord. Oh, the joys of those who trust the Lord, who have no confidence in the proud or in those who worship idols. O Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them. Psalms 40:1-5 NLT

It's this patience waiting that turns into something. This relief we need, this vision, the stability and firm foundation we need for a new year. It's about creating an internal patience that lasts longer than the 12 days it takes for a New Years Resolution to fail.

See you in worship. We will be celebrating Communion together and beginning our new year with Wesley's Covenant Prayer.

Around the middle of 2018, I started to feel this call to only preach gospel passages in 2019. I thought it sounded a little outlandish (and I am now embarrassed to even mention that), but I started asking people who knew me and know my ministry context what they thought. After a pretty good reaction I started asking people in my own church communities what they might think. Their thoughts were the same as others, this is something that could be a great idea.

The whole point of it was, if we are supposed to be following this way of Jesus together, shouldn't we spend a year reading the gospels and sitting in these formational passages?

So in late 2018 I started my own personal journey of reading and studying the 4 gospels more than I have in the past, and to continue on with it throughout all of 2019. I'm excited to share these lessons with you on the last Sunday of 2019.

Here are the three things I think I'm taking with me as the most important.

1. This is about life different than we have ever expected it before.
2. This life is meant to be lived in a way drastically different than one of our own design.
3. This life will be made manifest by the way it changes our outward actions and relationship inside the community of God.

I'm excited to share things with you on this last Sunday of the year.

Have you ever had a problem finishing things? It's a great google search if you get bored. Helping me combat this problem has turned into an entire industry of coaching, strategic plans, books, online courses and much more. On the downside, it serves as both a symptom and effect of a host of medical conditions.

As we chase through life, especially since our culture has transitioned from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, our own vocation or job doesn't provide the satisfaction of finishing things. It's a base human emotion that we struggle with and now live in a world where being "done" seems like an impossible task. The satisfaction of stepping back to send an end result is something we have a natural desire for.

So what if I told you this is an emotion we are predisposed to by a loving God?

Jesus' first words around his ministry in the Gospel of Mark proclaim this;

"The time promised by God has come at last!" he announced. "The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!" Mark 1:15 NLT

There is an end-result to what had been going on, and something radically different was happening within space and time.

But the story starts before Jesus uttered these words. Matthew wrote his entire gospel to help Jewish people understand that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, and the promised Messiah. And he told this story filled with the message of fulfillment, the message of a thing that has been finished.

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. "Get up!" the angel said. "Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead."

So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod's son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: "He will be called a Nazarene." Matthew 2:19-23 NLT

Matthew is letting us know, with the simple statement of prophetic fulfillment that God has kept His promise, and he has done it in the way He has communicated to His people. Fulfillment is a big deal, and prophecy is a big deal. Because the essence of prophecy is hope, not optimism. In our own lives we can confuse these two things easily.

So let's have a conversation this Sunday about what fulfillment is actually like…and what happens when we open ourselves up to it.

Gift giving can be hard. It is one of the things most seen has part of the holiday season, but it can be hard.

And we have to thank these wise men for it. They started off the whole thing.

In this weeks story about dreams and the birth of Jesus we are looking at two different characters and how they understand divine revelation.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him."

King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, "Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?"

"In Bethlehem in Judea," they said, "for this is what the prophet wrote:

'And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.'" Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. Then he told them, "Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!"

After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod. Matthew 2:1-12 NLT

These wise men and Herod both want the same thing. To find the new messiah. But they have this desire for very different reasons and ultimately we find God using a dream to warn the wise men. Both are chasing greatness, but only one group really understands who is the greatest.

So let's talk about why this subtle interaction in the story of Jesus helps us understand the way our world works.

Dreams are a funny thing. We have them as kids and they can excite or terrify us. As we get older, they stay with us. Sometimes, they make us feel just like we are kids again…and sometimes they can scare us. Again, just like we are kids. But the older we get the more we tend to look at our dreams as these psychological realizations about our life. Let's be honest…we have all had those dreams that make us sit back and pause.

In scripture, dreams are seen as vehicles of divine revelation. They are all throughout the story of God's people and they play a pretty major part of the story of Jesus' birth. This month, we will be looking at the dreams that lead up to the birth of the messiah. Our first one is at the beginning of the story of Jesus. We find it in Matthew 1.

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. "Joseph, son of David," the angel said, "do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet:

"Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means 'God is with us.'"

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus. Matthew 1:18-25

This story is just the beginning of the story of Jesus. And inside of it we learn details about the people involved in the larger story of Jesus and we find the space to ask ourselves questions. As we begin to situate ourselves in the story of Jesus in our own communities and neighborhoods, we can find clarity in our own life by how we follow the example of Joseph.

For the last few weeks we have been talking about Anxiety as "empty space", and this week we will begin talking about filling that space. In many ways, this emptiness is at the beginning of the story of God and His interaction with creation.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.Genesis 1:1-2

In these three sentences we learn much about what the absence of the presence of God looks like. Formless and empty. Covered in darkness, with a great chasm filled with a substance humans can't live in. Without purpose and shape. For anyone who deals with anxiety, that description gets pretty appropriate. And as Balthasar, one of our conversation partners in these teachings says "the world was created as a supernatural experience of grace, and not for pointless living." To speak of the freedom from anxiety brought about by Jesus is to make a statement about who has really built our world. The space between, us turned from empty to full because of grace.

So this week we find ourselves in an early story of Jesus with His disciples in the gospel of Mark.

As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, "Let's cross to the other side of the lake." So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, "Teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?"

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Silence! Be still!" Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, "Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

The disciples were absolutely terrified. "Who is this man?" they asked each other. "Even the wind and waves obey him!" Mark 4:35-41 NLT

Inside of this story we find many truths, but nearly all of them point back to two things. The first is that Jesus did not believe in worry, even at the most stressful and anxious moments. The second, is that he has a power that is out of grasp for the rest of humanity, but He exercises and offers it to us. And it isn't blindly used, but it is used to fill all the spaces and gaps we may find in life.

See you this Sunday