New Life UMC

•Gods of Pleasure – the gods of pleasure often begin as good gifts from God. Food, sex, even entertainment are wonderful things that God has made part of our human experience. But when we focus on the gift and not the giver, we are committing idolatry. We find ourselves focused on obtaining pleasure. We look forward to it. We spend our time and money invested in it. And once good things take the place of the good things God had intended for us.

•Gods at Wars – last week I introduced you to the idea that the majority of our issues, our failings, and our sin has to do with a common problem, idolatry. We make gods out of anything and everything and we worship those false gods. We may not even know that it is an issue; but it is one of the, if not the central issue in the Bible and it is still central to our lives. This war between gods takes place in each of our lives and the battleground is our heart.

•Symptoms – every week we come together and join brothers and sisters across the globe in worship. We come coughing. We come with struggles, with pain, with stress, with addiction, with confusion, with grief, with anger, unable to control our habits, our spending, or our feelings of worthlessness. We come as sinners and many of us are self-aware and realize where we fall short. So we identity the issue. “I have a bad cough.” And we think we can treat the cough. But maybe the real problem is not the cough; perhaps underneath all of our issues, all of our struggles, all of our sin is something truly insidious; something we don’t want to deal with and something that is eating away at our spiritual lives. Sin is a symptom. The problem? Idolatry.

•What’s in your Hand? – What’s in your hand? What are you holding on to? When you are asked, “who are you?” what comes to mind before “child of God?” Sometimes going all in and all out means remembering the all in all. We are God’s and God has a place and purpose for us in The Kingdom. It took Moses eighty years, but on that day he threw down his staff and became the leader God has always meant for him to be.

•Going All Out – Going all out means giving 100%. It means maximum effort; giving all of yourself and all of your energy. Sometimes when we are faced with risks, or challenges, or we are just afraid, we let that fear control us. We let fear call the shots. We let things we know overweight our relationship with God. We invert the Gospel because we are afraid where Jesus is calling us. The reality is it only takes one moment, one decision, and one crazy act of courage to do what we need to do. Jonathan did not plan. He did not let fear control him or reason talk him out of his decision. He made one call, made one decision and because of that he was able to go all out.

All In – last week I introduced you to the idea of consecrating yourself to God; going all in and all out for the all in all, as Pastor Batterson says. I invited you to start following Jesus, not invite Jesus to follow you. Also to commit yourself to consecration by radical devotion to praying, being present, giving, serving, and witnessing. So what’s it look like to go all in? Let’s start by looking at a baffling story from Genesis.

•Going All In – I am an excellent and at the same time terrible poker player, at least when it comes to Texas Hold’em. Inevitably in the first few hands I will go all in; which, for those of you unfamiliar with the game, means I put all my chips/or money on the table. I bet everything on that one hand. Often this causes others to fold. But sometimes one or more opponents will challenge my hand. This leads to one of two conclusions. Either they have a better hand than I do and I am out of the game, or in the first few minutes of the game I have doubled or tripled my money. At that point it’s pretty easy to win. But it is an all or nothing gamble; it’s not safe and it is the most risky thing you can do in the game of poker.

•The Former – God is The Former. In the beginning God formed something out of nothing. There was nothing, God got involved and then there were stars and planets. On Earth God formed oceans and land and sky. God formed fish, mammals, and birds. God formed humanity, male and female in the image of the divine. But that was just the beginning. God has been forming every day since then. God formed relationships over and over and over again. Through Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit God continues to form us. God forms us as new creations, living new lives. Even in new life God continues to form us as disciples each day of our lives. Once our time on earth is over God will form us into the resurrection and the process of forming may continue into eternity. God uses grace to form us; to save us and make us new.