The (Lieben)GOOD LIFE

The Full Stature of Christ: We Get There Together! Ephesians 4.1-16 Introduction 1.       Series: What does God want? And how does He get it? If God is the fount of blessing, the life-giver, the source of all that is good and perfect, then the most important question is not what we want and how can God get it for us, but rather, what does God want. This is the core of what it means to be a disciple: “Your will be done!” 2.       Review: James 1.2-5 Psalm 1 Goal Single-minded faithfulness to God; maturity Flourishing, blessed, prosperous humans Gift Wisdom to discern how to be faithful to God in the midst of testing Delight in God’s Law; His instructions Response Ask God (in faith) for wisdom Meditate on God’s instructions 3.       See if you can find these three elements, goal, gift, and response) in Ephesians 4...

Want to Flourish? Delight in God’s Instructions! Psalm 1 Introduction 1.      We all want to flourish, to grow and develop to our full potential; to enjoy life to its fullest. We want to thrive and not just survive. We want to prosper and not just get by. 2.      What are the conditions necessary for human flourishing? How are we to become people that develop our full human potential? a.      A plant needs water, good soil, sun light, proper temperature, nutrients to flourish. b.      Obviously, humans need sleep, exercise, rest, and nutrition as a starting point. But what makes humans unique from other creatures in creation is that these material provisions are not enough for our human flourishing. We need more. 3.      We are continuing our series What Does God Want and How Does He Get It? a.      James 1.2-5: God wants us to be single-minded pe...

I am preaching on Psalm 1 this Sunday. The wisdom song reminds us that a flourishing life is nourished by delightful mediation on God's Word. In reading the first part of Psalm 1, my mind ran to George Mueller  and his description of how he approached each day: It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost, for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For though I might seek to witness to the lost, or to benefit other believers, or to relieve the distressed, or in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; nevertheless, if I myself am not happy in the Lord, a...

Readings: Psalm 33.16-22 Hebrews 10.19-25 Luke 22.14-30 Introduction 1.      The challenge for Christians of every generation has always been the same: will we continue to place our hope in God and the life that He has promised us, or will we replace that hope with a counterfeit hope? a.      Amos Lee: “Sometimes we forget what we got, who we are, and who we are not. I think we got a chance to make it right…” b.      When we gather together to worship, we have that "chance to make it right"—to remember  “what we got”, “who we are”, and “who we are not”. c.       Our gathering is a time to re-orient our hope back to the one true God—and to abandon all counterfeits! 2.      What are the counterfeit hopes in your life? a.      Psalm 33: position, power, technology b.      Ecclesiastes: pleasure, power, education…...

We are conditioned to think that things develop from beginning to end, from A to Z. That is, we assume that Z is what it is because it is the result of causes, effects, and reactions that began with A and worked their way to Z. Another way of saying this is that history is moving from A to Z, and that Z is the end product of events A through Y. It seems to me that God's way of narrating the world challenges that way of looking at history. Even though the story starts with A (Genesis 1-2) and ends with Z (Revelation 21-22), there is a sense in which the final scene of history, rather than being the result of prior decisions, causes, reactions, and effects, is instead shaping all the events prior, that history is conforming to Z if you will. In other words, it appears that Z is the first cause. Maximus the Confessor says it this way: For the things of the Old Testament are the shadow. Those of the New are an image. Truth is the state of things to come. Orthodox theologian Joh...