The Neighborhood Church

We meet two men in need of mercy. We hear Jesus ask an incisive and surprising question. We learn to pray three simple and powerful prayers through the course of this brief story. But the question is, "Do we really see?"

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Matthew 20.29-34

// So often we want to imagine ourselves as the disciples or the ones calling out. But, if we're being honest, aren't we the crowd?

// PRAYER 1 -- "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me."

// When reading the Gospels -- "WHEN" matters

// To pray is to surrender control of the outcomes. We don't ask to control God, we ask to access God's mercy he freely gives to all who ask in humility.

// PRAYER 2 -- "I want to see."

// If Jesus asked you that question, "What do you want me to do for you?" How would you answer?

// How we answer reveals what we want and what we believe. Which is why it's good to use other people's prayers and it's reassuring to know that God's wise and knows what we really need.

// PRAYER 3 -- "I want to follow You."

You're invited to jump into the conversation as we reflect on Jesus' surprising encounter with 10 lepers. Every fifth Saturday at TNC our children join us for a Family Worship Gathering. Enter into the story with us as we ask six questions, share our responses, and explore some next steps in our journey together.

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Luke 17.11-19

1. What word or phrase sticks out to you?

// Our boundary-crossing God is reaching out the unreached people and places in our world (and he's inviting us to go and do likewise).

2. Who are the people in our world that are often unseen or unreached?

3. What would you call Jesus tonight?

4. What do I want Jesus to do?

// We do what we can and let God do what we can't.

// Faith is going without knowing every step ahead.

5. What's a next step I can take this week?

// Nine of them did the right thing. One of them (The "unreached" one!) did the even-better-thing by turning back to say "Thanks." Will we humbly learn from his example?

6. What do we need to turn back and say "Thanks" for?

The question is not "Is God trying to get my attention" (he is) but "Am I paying attention and responding appropriately?" God's revealing something of his goodness in what we see and the words we hear. Psalm 19 paints this picture in two halves. In the first half we get a whisper of life in the wind, stars, and sun -- inviting our attention toward a Creator. In the second half we get a way of life in the covenant relationship of knowing this Creator as "Mine." So what about us? Will we pay attention and move deeper?

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Psalm 19

// Are the prayerbook of God’s people that covers the vast landscape of human emotion and experience. The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God, reminding us to pay attention to God and to respond appropriately.

// The average American...

- Uses their phone 144-200 times a day (once every 5-6 minutes)

- Spends 11 hours, 6 minutes a day on digital media (phone, computer, TV, or audio)

// The question is NOT "Is God trying to get my attention" (he is) BUT "Am I paying attention and responding appropriately?"

// A Psalm in two halves -- CREATION (vv. 1-6), where we hear a whisper of Life and COVENANT (vv. 7-14) where we find a way of Life.

// Movement from HEAVENS to TORAH to HEART -- moving from something heard to something lived and embodied.

// Movement from "GOD" to "YHWH" to "MY" -- moving from someone heard to someone known and loved.

// Discipleship is being with Jesus to learn from Jesus how to live like Jesus (Dallas Willard). No one can do that for you. Transformation happens when God and his way move from ideas and whispers to "Mine."

// When did God become "My God"?

We hear that God is good. We remind ourselves that God is trustworthy. We tell each other that we'll make it. But why are we so forgetful when setbacks and struggles surround us? Psalm 27 is a conversation between the poet, God, and the poet's own internal thoughts. Where do we go when things get tough? Do we "seek God's face" or do we fear God's rejection? Psalm 27 is a fascinating movement of raw pleading and restless seeking that ultimately settles into trust and waiting. We have much to learn and reflect upon as we explore this relentless expression of trusting, leaning, and seeking.

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Psalm 27

// The Psalms are the prayerbook of God’s people that covers the vast landscape of human emotion and experience. The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God, reminding us who to trust when we’re anxious and afraid.

// Do you see the movement? From danger, into the sanctuary, settling into trust.

// Raw pleading and restless seeking are both valid expressions of authentic faith. Keep asking, seeking, and waiting long enough and, like the Psalmist,

our raw and restless expressions can be transformed into the quiet confidence of trust: knowing that we are not alone and that God is not done.

I. TRUSTING WHO GOD IS AND WHY THAT MATTERS (Who has God been to you lately?)

// Trusting who we know God to be must be nurtured, remembered, and settled before the setbacks come (and they will). Why? Because we so often let our circumstances dictate who God is instead.

II. LEANING HARDER INTO GOD WHEN LIFE IS HARD (Can you name what you're facing?)

// When life is hard, we lean harder into Jesus. We engage God instead of enemies. We seek God by creating space, crying out, and checking in with yourself and others.

III. SEEKING GOD WHO IS WITH US AND "GATHERS" US (How will create space to be with him?)

// Can we turn our anxiety into asking and abiding? Our worrying into praying? Can we talk to God, reassure ourselves, and encourage each other? Can we skip Christianese platitudes without skimping on empathy & encouragement?

REFLECT --

/ What area of your life is God asking for more of your trust?

/ How will you create space to seek God's face this week?

/ Who do you know God to be lately?

We regularly need help. But humans have this bad habit of looking to the wrong people and in the wrong places. Psalm 146 puts its arms on our shoulders and says, "Breathe, trust, and praise God." Why? Because people, pastors, and politicians will fail us but God won't stop working, blessing, and reigning. Oh, and pay attention to *who* God is working for. May we look to God and ground our help and hope in his kingdom.

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Psalm 146

// The Psalms are the prayerbook of God’s people that covers the vast landscape of human emotion and experience. The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God, reminding us where to look for our help and hope.

// Psalm 146 is a corporate conversation with God and a people tempted to trust just about anyone else but him for help.

// When we face failure, brokenness, and need, Psalm 146 puts its hands on our shoulders and says, "Breathe, trust, and praise."

// Psalms of Doxology -- Psalms 146-150 are bookended with "Hallelujah's"

// Psalm of Contrast -- Psalm 146 critiques competitors vying for your hope and calls us to praise God and find blessing

// WHERE AM I INVESTING MY TRUST? WHERE DO I LOOK FOR MY HELP? Does the ground of my identity and security "come to nothing" when [BLANK] "comes to nothing"?

// "THE YEAH YEAH YEAH SONG" by The Flaming Lips (2006)

If you could blow up the world

with the flick of a switch, would you do it?

If you could make everybody poor

just so you could be rich, would you do it?

If you could watch everybody work

while you just lay on your back, would you do it?

If you could take all the love

without giving any back, would you do it?

And so we cannot know ourselves

Or what we'd really do

With all your power

With all your power

With all your power

What would you do?

// God wills well-being and has a special care for the poor and oppressed. God is actively working to renew what’s broken and restore what’s imbalanced (justice). God makes, remains faithful, upholds the cause of the oppressed, feeds, frees, gives sight, lifts up, loves...

// When you see need, you see a call to... (a.) Love (b.) Pray (c.) Act or (d.) All the Above (and look closely because you'll see God too)

// "Jesus is the kingdom in person" (ORIGEN)

// The gospel in 1 word -- "Jesus." The gospel in 3 words -- "Jesus is Lord." The gospel is the Good News that Jesus—through his life, death, and resurrection—is the reigning Lord of heaven and earth and all people are invited to live in God's kingdom, filled with God's Spirit, free from sin and death.

Psalm 30 is a Psalm of hindsight. As the dust of danger and difficulty finally settled, the poet realizes that he is now healthy, grateful, and joyful because God brought him through it. But he didn't always feel thankful. Psalm 30 includes "real talk" about our lived experience of danger, anger, and absence. How do we understand God's anger? Does God still love us? What if we feel God's absence? Is God still working in us? We explore these questions and more.

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Psalm 30

// The Psalms are the prayerbook of God's people that covers the vast landscape of human emotion and experience.

// The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God, telling their story and inviting us to sing along.

// A Psalm of Hindsight -- "I didn't think I'd make it but now I see you have turned my life around."

// Their story is your story... 1. Need, 2. Petition, 3. Rescue, and 4. Gratitude ...so sing along

// ANGER -- Always spoken of as "Fleeting" in Scripture. Our understanding must be rooted in Scripture and informed by our Christology. Did Jesus get angry? Yes. Does a loving parent get angry? Yes. But if we interpret anger, remember that it's rooted in love.

// "God loves (verb). God is love (noun). Every verb God does is an expression of the noun God is. Anger is an attribute, but love is God's essence." (GREG BOYD)

// ABSENCE -- A universal experience of saints on the journey. St. John of the Cross speaks of the "Dark Knight of the Soul" that God brings us to in order to grow and go deeper.

// Our experience of God's presence is like our experience of the sun -- always shining but occasionally obscured by the clouds in our field of vision or our rotation away from its warmth.

// FINAL THOUGHT -- Though our interpretation tells us God is angry, he never stops loving. Though our experience tells us God is absent, he never stops shining. But we can only understand this after the morning comes. Until then, keep walking because God is still working.

Guest speaker Scotty Swingler casts a vision for a life well lived as we explore the end of Joseph's incredible saga in Genesis 45. Scotty is the Associate Pastor of Students at Sugar Land Baptist Church in Sugar Land, TX.

Psalm 1 is a sign posted at the beginning of our journey through the book and through life itself. The word "Blessed" is painted in big letters at the entrance as an invitation to "Listen up because the quality of your life depends on it!" So where are we headed and what are we going to listen to?

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Psalm 1

// The Psalms are the prayerbook of God's people that covers the vast landscape of human emotion and experience. The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God -- like our failures, fear, and future.

// Psalm 1 is a Psalm of trajectory -- about where you're headed and the way you take to get there.

// "BLESSED"

- A Geography

- A Quality

- A Trajectory

// ISRAEL'S fork in the road: Deuteronomy 30.15-16

// "SIN" at its root is a failure to love and a rejection of life. Choices become habits, habits become character, so stop sitting over there and listening to it!

// JESUS' fork in the road: Matthew 7.13-14, 24

// Where are you on your journey with Jesus?

// "MEDITATES"

- A Murmuring

- A Mulling

- A Chanting

// QUOTE -- "Each citizen is habitually engaged in the contemplation of a very puny object, namely himself." (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835)

// Belief informs behavior. Our faith is not just meant to be believed, our faith is meant to be lived.

// What story are we telling ourselves about God? About who we are? About what matters? Because where we're headed depends on what we're listening to.

The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God, including our deepest fears. In Psalm 91, the things that give the poet fear, worry, and anxiety are not abstract concepts. They are real dangers faced along the path of life in ancient Israel. Yet, over and above these nightmare scenarios is the "Most High" and "Almighty" -- our God who is refuge and strength. What would our lives look like if we could move under the shelter of his strength and offer our hope, hurt, and fear to God?

NOTES --

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Psalm 91

// The Psalms are the prayerbook of God's people that covers the vast landscape of human emotion and experience. They give us permission to bring our whole selves to God... like our failures and fear.

// What is this Psalm?

- Not a doctrinal statement

- Nor a 100% money-back guarantee

- But a conversation of consolation that reassures and reminds us that nothing we fear now will ultimately win out.

// Why?

- Because our life is securely hidden within God, our refuge.

// BRADY SMITH -- "We are not promised a life free from pain but we are promised a future full of peace."

// NAME IT...

1. What am I afraid of?

2. What am I hoping for?

3. What do I need?

// MOVE IN AND HANG LAUNDRY

Move all your fears, worry, hopes, and life under the shelter of God's care. Hang every one of them on the line and allow the Wind of the Spirit to move and blow, no matter what's out there. Our anchor runs deep in an unshakeable and immovable Refuge.

The Psalms have been the prayerbook for God’s people since they were written, and while many circumstances of modern life have changed, the range of human emotions and basic experience is timeless. Psalm 32 shows David reflecting on the demise left from a life full of transgressions and then celebrating the forgiveness from sin and reconciliation with God. We can follow his example of eventually not ignoring sin and confessing to the One who can truly forgive and cover our iniquity. Praise God!

Questions for Reflection:

What sin are we ignoring in our lives right now?

What is holding us back from confessing and seeking forgiveness?

What forgiveness are you seeking and celebrating?

What forgiveness do you need to give to someone else?