MCC Podcast

This year we are approaching the Christmas season through a series that we’re calling Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Now, while ugly Christmas sweaters are funny, we know that Christmas brings with it, for many people, an ugly side of life. We try to bury it with colored lights and music and Christmas specials and Hallmark movies that begin in October, but people, maybe your friends, maybe you, deal with: 

Busyness 

Depression 

Loneliness  

And Jesus didn’t come to gloss over the ugly parts of life, He came to light them up with His Kingdom and help us through. So we’re going to be taking the 3 weeks leading up to Christmas to talk about what it looks like and what Jesus has to say about helping people through the ugly parts of Christmas.  

This Sunday we will be starting with Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth.

Family gatherings are always stressful. Each time we gather together we are bringing in both our expectations and our brokenness. But what if our family gatherings could look different. This week we will look at scripture to see how putting Jesus at the center of our families can actually change the way we view our gatherings and how we treat each other.

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving and many of us will be getting together with family at some point. AND because the next day is Black Friday and the following Monday is Cyber Monday, we thought it was good for us to be reminded of what Paul reminded the early church. This is the official beginning of the holiday season that will take us through New Year’s Day.

This week as we begin our series, Family Feels, I want to remind us all that children are awesome. Our responsibility to them as parents (and all of us who have children within our sphere of influence) is awesome too.  

Christian psychologist Gary Smalley co-wrote a book with John Trent entitled, “The Blessing.” They wrote: “ While we may say out loud that we don't care what other people think about us, on the inside we all yearn for intimacy and affection. This yearning is especially true in our relationship with our parents. Gaining or missing out on parental approval has a tremendous effect on us, even if it has been years since we have had any regular contact with them. In fact, what happens in our relationship with our parents can greatly affect all our present and future relationships."  

And we all have this in common. We long for the love and praise of our parents; what Smalley and Trent call “The Blessing.” Sunday I get to share about the incredible opportunity we have, here at MCC, to bless the children in our lives.

This weekend we are going to conclude our Life Is Hard, God Is Good series by looking at the last 3 chapters of Job’s story. As a reminder, last week we looked at chapters 3-37 which contains the conversation that Job’s 3 friends had with Job, mostly accusing him of doing something wrong that prompted God to punish him so heinously. It also contained Job defending himself and complaining about how God treated him.  

As the book ends, God speaks. And in what God says, we will be reminded of three principles that we need when we face difficult times in our lives as well. And none of these may fly well in our culture today.

There is an organization from Europe known as BLTC Research. The company was founded in 1995 in order to promote what they call “paradise-engineering.” One of their stated goals is to deliver “genetically pre-programmed well-being.” According to their scientists - using our “super-minds” and genetic engineering - mankind can abolish both physical and mental pain altogether. They plan to create super-health and usher in a cruelty-free world. No suffering.  

Now that’s an interesting world-view, but you know as well as I do, it’s absolutely ridiculous. We saw last week that we live in a fallen world and that bad things happen to good people. In fact, both God’s Word and human experience demonstrate that human suffering helps us mature and that the experience of suffering forces us to lean more heavily upon God.  

Last week we read the story of Job that so many people are familiar with. This week we will see what we can learn from the conversation between Job and his friends who came to “comfort him.”

Job lived 4500 years ago. And the book of Job was probably the first book in the Bible. He predated Moses who wrote the first 5 books of the Bible.  

Q: Why, you may ask, am I telling you that? 

A: The first divinely inspired book written deals with humanity’s age-long mystery; why do good people suffer? Some things never change.  

There comes a time in every life, just like in Job’s, when you will wonder the same thing. It’s as if all hell has broken loose. Suddenly. Unexpectedly.  

It happens to all of us. No one is exempt. One way or another, tragedy strikes every life. And then the doubts begin. The questions: 

Why is this happening to me? 

What have I done to deserve this? 

God, what’s wrong with me? 

God, don’t You still love me?  

I want to warn you now: 

There will be lessons in this series you won’t want to hear. We will likely read verses that will raise more questions than they answer. Some painful memories may come rising to the surface as we look at Job’s life.  

But it’s my hope that God will speak to you through His Word so you can be equipped for when very difficult times come your way.  

This week we begin his story.

If you’re one of the 115 million Americans who heads to work in a vehicle on a daily basis, odds are there are few things that frustrate you more than getting stuck at a red light. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the perfect amount of time for a light to remain red is between 60 and 90 seconds. That means that, ideally, an urban driver would spend an average of 75 seconds waiting at each red light.  

According to AAA, the average American spends 17,600 minutes driving each year. That’s 3,520 minutes, or 58.6 hours, spent waiting at red lights every 365 days.  

But it’s not just waiting in line that challenges our patience, challenging situations and frustrating people, test our patience as well. Sometimes even the best of friends can test each others’ patience.  

Patience can be an Achilles’ heel, depending on how it affects the example we are leaving of our faith and how being a disciple of Jesus plays out in real life in real time.  

And this Sunday, as we conclude our Achilles’ series, we’ll see what James says about helping us with that.

Conflict is a universal experience with all people.   

It doesn't matter how well you get along, it doesn't matter how much you love each other, it doesn't matter how mature a Christian you are, there is still going to be some conflict in your life.  

In fact, in any relationship with another person, no two people are going to see eye to eye on every issue. The more time you spend together, the more opportunities you'll have to disagree.  

However, that doesn't mean we can't live our lives in peace and harmony either. Conflict is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be fatal. This week we’ll be looking at what James says about two of the most common roots of conflict in our lives, and how we can avoid allowing that to be an Achilles’ heel in our faith.

Dr. Louann Brizendine is a neuropsychiatrist and a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She wrote the books, “The Female Brain” in 2006 and “The Male Brain” in 2010. She states that, “A woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000.”

Now there is a lot that could be said with that type of statistic. But I won’t say any of them.

But I will remind you that Proverbs 18:20 (Good News Version) says, “You have to live with the consequences of everything you say.”

Have you ever noticed that some of us are born with a silver foot in our mouth?

We have this natural ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Nothing is opened more wrongly at the wrong time than our mouths.

James talks more about the tongue than any author in the New Testament. Every chapter in his book says something about managing your mouth. This Sunday, I will be sharing 2 reasons that James reminds us of why our mouth can be an Achilles’ heel, and what we can do to make sure it’s not.