When Life is Unexpectedly Short...

Today is our daughter Hannah's 11th birthday. And for 10 years, we have celebrated her birthday with her absent from the party. You see, Hannah passed away at her birth. Yet, while we miss her presence and the opportunity to experience all that her life on earth would have blessed us with, we are comforted by the reality that she is experiencing the relationship with God she was created for in Heaven. She sees Jesus face to face and has so from the beginning.

And while there are times that we still feel the grief and pain that comes from our daughter's death, we also recognize that she never experienced the grief and pain that can so often confront us as we live life on earth. The grief and pain that many feel as they suffer hurt and loss that comes when a loved one passes away.

And this morning, as I remember the passing of our daughter, my heart also goes out to those who who are wrestling with the grief, pain and loss as a result of the sudden and tragic death of a local high school teacher. A local teacher who impacted the lives of thousands of students, parents, and fellow teachers.

With any sudden loss we tend to find ourselves face to face with profound pain and profound questions. Profound pain and profound questions that we do not normally consider or care to answer. Profound questions like "Why am I here? Am I investing my life in what is most important? Do I have the right priorities in mind? Am I living a life that matters?" Profound questions that we normally do not consider or care to answer because we think that we have plenty of time. It is a sudden and tragic loss that brings us to the harsh reality that long life is not guaranteed to anyone. There are times when life is shorter than we expected or anticipated.

In the Bible, there is a section of a letter where the smartest man who ever lived, Solomon, responded to this reality with a simple statement that calls us to change our perspective when it comes to dealing with these profound questions:

It is better to go to a house of mourning Than to go to a house of feasting, Because that is the end of every man, And the living takes it to heart. Ecclesiastes 7:2

Solomon is not saying that funerals are better than parties. Right before this sentence, Solomon had made the strong statement that the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth. Solomon here is explaining why he believes that the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth. Solomon states that it is better to go to a funeral than to attend a baby shower because all humanity will experience death.

And being at a funeral causes those who are living to ponder the life that they are currently living and what is important. Because, no matter how we try to avoid or ignore it, the harsh reality is that no one can escape death. All of humanity has an appointment with death. And for some, like my daughter Hannah and a local teacher, that appointment comes sooner than we expect or anticipate.

The sudden and unexpected loss of life causes incredible pain and grief that is unexpressable at times. The sudden and unexpected loss of life also causes us to ponder and consider the relationships and activities that we invest our lives in. Funerals remind us of what we often forget: that long life is not promised to anyone.

So on Hannah's 11th birthday, my heart and my prayers go out to all who are suffering the hurt and pain that comes from this sudden loss. And in the midst of this sudden loss, I find comfort in a prayer that a man named Paul prayed to others who were suffering, which is found in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

To Restart Requires Taking a First Step...

Yesterday we looked at a story in the Bible found in the book of Joshua where God commanded the Jewish people to cross the Jordan River and enter into the Promised Land. And God’s command and His plan seem simple enough: all they needed to do was follow the priests as they stepped into the Jordan River, and God would part the Jordan River so that they could cross on dry land. While that seems relatively simple; I mean obviously it would be a miracle for God to part the Jordan, but all they had to do was follow the priests after they waded into the Jordan. I mean that does not seem like too much to ask, does it?

But to really understand what God was expecting of the Jewish people, we first need one additional piece of information, which is provided as the story continues in Joshua 3:14-15:

So when the people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant before the people, and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest),

For the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of the harvest. The Jordan River, as it always was during the harvest, which occurred during the months of March and April on our calendars. During the spring, the melting snow from the surrounding mountains would turn the Jordan River into a swollen and raging river that overflowed its banks.

Now picture yourself as a member of the Jewish nation. As we saw earlier, you have been camped next to the Jordan for three days watching and listening to the Jordan River at flood stage. And after three days your leader comes to you and says, pack up all of your belongings because we are going to cross the Jordan. We are going to restart our lives now. But instead of parting the water beforehand, like the stories of Moses and the Red Sea that you heard growing up, you need to start wading into the river first.

How would you feel about the idea of wading into that river? With your wife; and your kids; and your possessions. Or imagine being one of the priests, who would be carrying the Ark of the Covenant. “So let me get this straight, you want me to carry the Ark where God’s presence dwells; the ark that carries the Ten Commandments into that river, without dropping or touching it”? Would you be excited about that prospect? Would you do that? You like the Jewish people, would be thinking “I can’t get across this river; it would take a miracle”. But to restart your life, you need to step into that river.

Maybe I have just described what the concept of restarting your life feels like to you. Maybe the whole prospect of restarting your life seems like a river at flood stage that you have to cross. Maybe for you to restart your life, it feels like there is a flooded river of fear and doubt that must be crossed. Just like the Jewish people at the Jordan River, the very idea of restarting our lives can often place us in front of what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle. Like a river at flood stage; like a deluge of doubt; like a flood of fear. Yet for the Jewish people, to restart their lives in a way that would move them to a place where they would be living in the relationship with God and one another that they were created and called us to be, they would have to take the first step.

And the timeless principle that this story reveals for us is that to restart requires taking a first step. Restarting our lives requires taking a first step towards how God has called us to live and to where God is calling us to be. Restarting our lives requires that we take a first step of courageous trust to do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing. Just as God was calling the Jewish people to demonstrate their courage and their trust in God by taking that first step into the Jordan, to restart our lives requires that we demonstrate our courage and trust in God by taking that first step towards the life that God calls us to live.

We see how God responded to the Jewish people’s first step as the story concludes, beginning again in verse 15:

and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest), the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those which were flowing down toward the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite Jericho. And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground, until all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan.

God responded to the Jewish people taking that first step to do what they were supposed to do by doing what only He could do. As soon as the priests took that first step and stood in the Jordan River, God stopped the flow of the water that was coming down the Jordan River at a town called Adam so that it stood up in one heap. So the water just began to stack up on top of itself at Adam. The town of Adam was 19 miles upstream from where the Jewish people crossed the Jordan. In addition, the water that would have normally flowed into the Jordan River was prevented from doing so by God. The priests would be standing in the middle of the now dry riverbed of the Jordan River as over 600,000 men crossed to the other side. If you include women and children, most scholars believe that between 1.5 and 2 million people would have crossed the Jordan River as the water stacked up some 19 miles away. Now that is something that only the supernatural activity of God could accomplish.

But God’s supernatural activity began after He invited the Jewish people to take that first step. For the Jewish people to restart their lives, they needed to take that first step that demonstrated their courage and confident trust in the reality that God could do only what God could do. And is the same way today, God invites us to take that first step of courage and confident trust so that God can do what only God can do in our effort to restart our lives. Because the reality is that to restart requires taking a first step.

So what is keeping you from taking that first step to restart your life? What obstacle, what river at flood stage do you need to take that first step into so that God would do what only He can do?

Unexpected Expectations...

As a church, we began the new year looking at a story in the Bible that records the story of the Jewish people as they began the process of restarting their lives as individuals and as a nation. And in Joshua chapter 3, as the Jewish people prepare to cross the Jordan River, we discover another timeless principle that enables us to restart our lives in a way that we would move to a place in our lives where we are living in the relationship with God and one another in a way that God has created and called us to be:

At the end of three days the officers went through the midst of the camp; and they commanded the people, saying, "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God with the Levitical priests carrying it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. "However, there shall be between you and it a distance of about 2,000 cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you shall go, for you have not passed this way before." Joshua 3:2-4

After coming to the edge of the Jordan River, the Jewish people remained for three days as the people prepared. Now a natural question that arises here is why didn’t they just cross the Jordan as soon as they got there? I mean why wait?

After three days, Joshua’s leadership team passes through the camp and informs that Jewish people how they will cross the Jordan. The Jewish people were to be led into the Promised Land by the Ark of the Covenant. Now the Ark of the Covenant was where the Jewish people kept the two tablets of stone that the Ten Commandments were written on. And more importantly, the Ark of the Covenant was the place where the presence of the Lord dwelt among the Jewish people.

The levitical priests were responsible to carry to ark of the covenant and lead the Jewish people across the Jordan and into the promised land. And the Jewish nation that would be following the ark were commanded to give 2,000 cubits of space between the Ark of the Covenant and the people. To give you some perspective, 2,000 cubits is the equivalent of 3,000 feet, which would be ten football fields in distance between the ark and the Jewish people. The reason they needed to follow the priests and the ark at that distance was because, for the first time in forty years, they were going to travel somewhere new.

Instead of wandering in circles in the desert, they were beginning to take the first steps of restarting their lives as a nation, and to do that they would need to follow God’s leading through what was the unfamiliar. Joshua then provides some additional instructions to the nation, which we read about in verse 5-6:

Then Joshua said to the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you." And Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, "Take up the ark of the covenant and cross over ahead of the people." So they took up the ark of the covenant and went ahead of the people.

Joshua commands the Jewish people to consecrate themselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. To consecrate yourself would mean to set apart or to dedicate yourself to something, in this case being the Lord God. The reason they were to consecrate themselves was because the Lord was going to do wonders among the Jewish people.

If Joshua was giving this command to us today, this command would probably sound like this; “prepare yourself and get ready, because God is going to show up tomorrow in an amazing way and do the miraculous”. And for this generation of Jewish people, who had seen so little evidence of God’s supernatural and transformational activity as they wandered in the desert for forty years, this would have caused a sense of expectation and anticipation. This generation probable had little or no memory of God’s supernatural activity, except about what they may have heard in stories. They had spent that vast majority of their lives living a mundane existence of walking in circles. Now, however, it was time to restart. And as the Ark began to move forward, the anticipation and the expectation built.

Imagine yourself in this story. Can you imagine what that anticipation and expectation would feel like? We see God then give Joshua some encouragement and some final instructions in the verses that follow:

Now the LORD said to Joshua, "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. "You shall, moreover, command the priests who are carrying the ark of the covenant, saying, 'When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.'"

The Lord encourages Joshua by explaining that today will be the day that the Jewish people will look back on as the day that Joshua became firmly established as their leader. God wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that Joshua was the leader of the nation and representative for God just as Moses was the leader of the nation and representative of God in times past.

However, how God would establish Joshua as the leader of the Jewish people would be remarkably different. Instead of God miraculously parting the waters of the Jordan first, and then having the Jewish people walk across the river like He did when the Jewish nation crossed the Red Sea, the priests, who would be carrying the Ark of the Covenant where God’s presence resided, would first have to step into the Jordan River before God would miraculously part the river so the Jewish nation could cross. Joshua then communicates his marching orders from God to the Jewish people, as the story continues in verse 9:

Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, "Come here, and hear the words of the LORD your God." Joshua said, "By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will assuredly dispossess from before you the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite. "Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over ahead of you into the Jordan. "Now then, take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe. "It shall come about when the soles of the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan will be cut off, and the waters which are flowing down from above will stand in one heap."

Joshua, as God’s chosen leader, communicates to the Jewish nation God’s command and plan. And by following God’s command and plan, the Jewish people will be made unmistakably clear of two things. First the Jewish people will be made unmistakably clear that God is present among them as they restart their lives as a nation. And second, the Jewish people will be made unmistakably clear that God will keep the promise that He had made to them as a nation. And God’s command and His plan seem simple enough: all they needed to do was follow the priests as they stepped into the Jordan River, and God would part the Jordan River so that they could cross on dry land. While that seems relatively simple; I mean obviously it would be a miracle for God to part the Jordan, but all they had to do was follow the priests after they waded into the Jordan. I mean that does not seem like too much to ask, does it?

But to really understand what God was expecting of the Jewish people, we first need one additional piece of information, which we will see tomorrow.

To Restart Requires Faith...

Yesterday, we looked at a decision that a woman named Rahab had to make to exercise and demonstrate faith. Rahabe had to decide to place her confident trust in the fact that two spies from the Jewish people, who were God’s representatives, would keep their promise to her, in spite of the label that she wore and the life that she had lived.

But not only did Rahab have to decide to exercise confident trust that these men would keep their word to spare her and her family’s life; the spies also had a decision to make, as the story continues in Joshua 2:15:

Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall. She said to them, "Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way."

Rahab advises the spies to go the opposite direction of the Jordan River to the hill country that was approximately one mile west of the city. This hill country was filled with caves that were well suited for hiding. So the spies had a decision to make. The spies had to decide whether or not they were going to place their confident trust in Rahab.

So place yourself in the spies’ shoes. Would you have responded the same way? Would you place your confident trust in Rahab? Would you place your lives in the hands of a prostitute? A prostitute who was part of a wicked culture that was the enemy that God has commanded you to destroy? A prostitute who made her living manipulating men to go to bed with her for money? Are you going to take her advice on how to escape from the soldier’s of Jericho? I mean should could just as easily turn around and tell them exactly where they were going to hide for three days. We see the spies’ decision in the verses that follow:

The men said to her, "We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father's household. "It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him. "But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be free from the oath which you have made us swear." She said, "According to your words, so be it." So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

You see, both Rahab and the two spies faced the same dilemma, but from different perspectives. For Rahab, she recognized that she needed to restart her life that had been running off the rails. But to restart her life, she needed to place her faith in two spies to keep their word. For the two spies, they recognized that to complete their mission to obtain information so that they Jewish people could restart their lives, they would need to place their faith in a prostitute to keep her word.

In both cases, to restart required the same timeless principle. And that timeless principle is that to restart requires faith. Rahab had to place her faith in the character and word of two spies that represented God. The spies had to place their faith in the evidence God’s activity in a life that was being drawn to God and transformed by God. And in the same way today, we see that to restart requires faith. Just like Rahab and the two spies, to restart, we must place our faith; we must place our confident trust in the right object.

Restarting requires that we place our confident trust in the nature and character of God. And restarting requires that we place our confident trust in His timeless word that is found in the Bible. We see the results of the spies faith revealed for us as the story concludes:

They departed and came to the hill country, and remained there for three days until the pursuers returned. Now the pursuers had sought them all along the road, but had not found them. Then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they related to him all that had happened to them. They said to Joshua, "Surely the LORD has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us."

The spies responded to Rahab by faithfully following her advice. The spies traveled in the opposite direction of the Jordan and stayed three days hidden in the hills. And the spies’ faith was rewarded by a safe return to the Jewish people across the Jordan. And the spies were able to deliver two incredibly important pieces of information.

First, the spies were able to express their faith in God’s promise to give the Jewish people the Promised Land as a result of the evidence of God’s activity in the life of a prostitute who did what seemed to be the unthinkable. Second, they were able to express that the residents of Jericho were already defeated; their moral was at rock bottom as a result of God’s activity in the lives of the Jewish people.

Because the timeless reality is that to restart requires faith. To restart requires placing our confident trust in the nature and character of God and the truth of His word.

So where do you need to exercise faith when it comes to restarting your life? And where are you placing your faith? What or who is the object that you place your confident trust in?

Restarting a Life That Has Run Off the Rails...

Yesterday we looked at the question as to whether or not God is a God of vengeance. We discovered that the God of the Old Testament is the same God as we see in the New Testament: A God who is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness, but by no means will leave the guilty unpunished. God is a God of justice who provides every opportunity for people to change and come to Him.

And in the Book of Joshua, after 400 years of God extending grace, God brought the Jewish people to the edge of the Promised Land. And Jericho, being a border city a short distance from the Jordan River, would be the first city that the Jewish nation would encounter. You can even go visit the ruins of Jericho today. So as the Jewish people prepare for their first battle against the nations that lived in the Promised Land, their leader Joshua sends spies out on a reconnaissance mission to prepare for battle. We find out what happens next as the story continues:

So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there.

Now you may be thinking, why go to a brothel? In the culture of Jericho it would not be viewed as unusual for people to come from out of town and have a little fun with the local prostitutes. This made a brothel the perfect place for spies to hide without drawing suspicion. And whether you were raised in church and regularly attend church or if this is the first time you have attended church; whether or not you have read much of the Bible, most people have heard of Rahab. As we discovered in a sermon leading up to Christmas, Rahab has a well-known reputation doesn’t she? We know who Rahab was because of her label, “you know, Rahab the Harlot”. However, the plan did not work out so well, as we see in the next verses:

It was told the king of Jericho, saying, "Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land." And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, "Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land." But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. "It came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark, that the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them." But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the fords; and as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out, they shut the gate.

Now you might be wondering, “Why would Rahab lie?” While it is not unusual for people who are far from God to lie about something, especially in a culture as wicked as Jericho was, why she lied seems weird, doesn’t it? Why would Rahab lie and risk her life to protect men that she knew represented the people who desired to destroy her and her people? Usually people lie in a way that is for their benefit. This lie, however, does not seem to help her. We find the reason why Rahab lied revealed as the story continues:

Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, and said to the men, "I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. "For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. "When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.

Rahab responded to the evidence of God’s activity through the Jewish people by recognizing that the Lord was the one true God. Rahab responded by recognizing that the label that she bore and the life that she lived placed her on the lowest rung on the ladder as part of this wicked culture and that she was worthy of punishment and in need of rescue. Rahab recognized that she needed to restart her life. And Rahab responded to her need to restart her life by swimming against the current of the culture she lived in that devalued human life by protecting the spies that she viewed as representatives of the one true God. Rahab then demonstrates her belief in who God was and her need to restart her life by doing something that many would view as incredibly risky and even stupid:

"Now therefore, please swear to me by the LORD, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father's household, and give me a pledge of truth, and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death." So the men said to her, "Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the LORD gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you."

This morning, place yourself in Rahab’s shoes. Would you have responded the same way? Would you hide spies from a nation that is bent on destroying your people? Would you provide a way of escape to ensure their safe return with all the information necessary to overcome the defenses of your city? Would you trust the word of two spies that they would spare your life? Remember, you are a harlot, a prostitute; you probably have been lied to hundreds of times. How many times have men failed to come through on their promises to you? And what would happen to you and your family if the rest of Jericho found out what you did?

Rahab responded to who she was and who God was by trusting these men, who represented the Lord, to keep their word. Rahab exercised and demonstrated faith by placing her confident trust in the fact that these two men, who were God’s representatives, would keep their promise to her, in spite of the label that she wore. But not only did Rahab have to decide to exercise confident trust that these men would keep their word to spare her and her family’s life; the spies also had a decision to make.

We will look at the decision that the spies faced, along with the timeless principle that this story reveals for us when it comes to restarting our life, tomorrow.

Is God a God of Vengeance?

As a church, we have started the New Year with a brand new sermon series, entitled restart. During this series, we are looking at a letter in our Bible that records the efforts of an entire nation to restart their lives after forty years of wandering in a literal desert of hurt, pain, and failure as a result of past decisions. This letter, called the book of Joshua, records how the Jewish people experienced the same frustration, tension and trouble when it came to restarting their lives.

And in the book of Joshua, we come face to face with a question that I often hear when I engage people about the Bible or Christianity. We are introduced to this question as a result of something Joshua commands in Joshua 2:1:

Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho."

Joshua, as leader of the Jewish people, decides to send two spies secretly to spy out the city of Jericho. But to understand why Joshua would give this command, we first need to understand the context in which this story appears in the Bible. You see, the city of Jericho was located in a part of the world which was called the land of Canaan. God had promised Abraham that his descendants would live in the land of Canaan, so the Jewish people referred to Canaan as the Promised Land. After being delivered from slavery at the hands of the Egyptian nation, the Jewish people were commanded by God to take over and possess the Promised Land and destroy the all of the nations that inhabited the land.

And so often when I talk with people about God and Christianity, one of their biggest push backs that come sup in a conversation usually goes something like this: “How can a loving God destroy whole civilizations like He did in the Old Testament. Your God sounds like a God of wrath, not a God of love. If that is what God is like, I want no part of Him”. And maybe for you this is one of your biggest reasons for resisting or rejecting Christianity.

But to understand why God commanded the Jewish people to destroy the nations that inhabited the Promised Land and to possess the Promised Land, we first need to understand two things about these nations, which are referred to in the Bible as the Amorites. The first thing that we need to understand is that the people who made up the nations that inhabited the Promised Land were some of the most inhumane and cruelly wicked societies that ever lived. These were societies that sacrificed their infant children to false gods; these were societies that were involved in sexual behavior that was so twisted and perverse I cannot even begin to describe in detail. In Amorite societies young children were often suffocated and buried alive in the foundations of their homes as an act of worship to their false gods.

In fact, many historians and archaeologists describe the Canaanite society as being perhaps the most wicked society that ever lived. In another section of the Bible God made it clear to the Jewish people that they were not receiving the Promised Land because they were especially good; they were receiving the Promised Land because the inhabitants of that land, including Jericho, were exceptionally evil.

The second thing that we need to understand is that God did not simply wake up one morning and decide to wipe out an entire culture and society as a wrathful, angry God. Some 400 years before the story we are going to look at this week, God predicted and proclaimed to Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, that after being enslaved in Egypt, the Jewish nation would return to and take possession of the land that was promised to his descendants.

And for 400 years God endured the incredible wickedness of the Amorites, which was the society and that inhabited the Promised Land. God extended grace for 400 years in order to provide that society the opportunity to change their evil ways. And after 400 years, God chose to use the Jewish people as an instrument to exercise His justice and judgment on the people of the Promised Land, who had refused to change and were left with no excuse or defense for their wickedness.

The God of the Old Testament is the same God as we see in the New Testament: A God who is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness, but by no means will leave the guilty unpunished. God is a God of justice who provides every opportunity for people to change and come to Him. And tomorrow we will be introduced to a woman in the Old Testament who experienced God's transforming activity in her life.

So, do you think God is a God of vengeance, anger, and wrath? Is God cruelly vindictive? Why or why not?

To Restart Requires Courage...

This week we are addressing the enormity that we can face when it comes to restarting a part of our lives. So the question ultimately is how do we overcome the enormity that we can feel when it comes to restarting our life? And it is during a point of a story in a book in our Bibles called the Book of Joshua that God gives Joshua, and us today, a timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our life. We find this principle beginning in Joshua 1:6:

"Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. "Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

Three times in these four verses we see God command Joshua to be strong and courageous. Verse 6; “Be strong and courageous”; verse 7 “only be strong and courageous”; and verse 9; “have I not commanded you be strong and courageous”. And in the same way today, the timeless truth is that to restart requires courage.

Whether it is restarting a nation or restarting a relationship; or whether it is restarting a life that has wandered in the desert of disappointment and failure, to restart requires courage. Here we see God not only command Joshua to be strong and courageous; we see God provide Joshua direction as to where he must be strong and courageous. And in these verses we see two specific areas that require courage when it comes to restarting our lives.

First, we see that we are to be courageous when it comes to following God’s word. When God talks about being careful to do according to all the Law, He is referring to the first five books of our Bibles, which were called the Law or Torah. The Jewish people had God’s word and God expected His people to have the courage to follow His word.

And for Joshua to remain faithful to following God’s word in a way that would result in receiving God’s promises and a life of wisdom, he was to not allow the book of the Law to depart from their mouth, but instead to meditate on to day and night so that he would be careful to do all that is written in it. In other words, Joshua was to do three things when it came to God’s word- he was to talk about it, he was to think about it, and he was to act on it by obeying it. And to live such a life required courage. It requires courage to follow God’s word and do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing or the popular thing to do.

Second, we see that we are to be courageous when it comes to facing our fears. There was a reason why God commanded Joshua not to be trembled or be dismayed. God commanded Joshua to be strong and courageous because Joshua was shaking in his scandals. The phrase “do not tremble or be dismayed” literally means “do not fear or be filled with terror so as to fall to pieces”. Joshua was afraid in the same way you and I can be afraid when we are confronted with the fears that come with restarting our lives.

Whether it is the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, or the fear of change, the timeless reality is that restarting our lives requires the courage to face our fears. Now you might be thinking “well that is easy to say face your fears- but that is easier said than done”. But notice what God says as to the reason why he is not to be afraid; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. When God refers to Himself as the Lord your God, He is using His personal, relational name and invoking His personal presence. And is the same way today, God is fully aware and fully present in the midst of the fears we face that can cause us to fall to pieces when it comes to restarting our lives.

God is fully aware because Jesus experienced and faced those fears and lived a life by the power of the Holy Spirit that exercised the courage to overcome those fears and face the cross. So when God asks Joshua, and us here today, to be courageous when it comes to following His word and facing our fears, He is not asking us to do something that He has not already done. Jesus provides us the example of what it means to face our fears with faithfulness.

So where do you need to exercise courage when it comes to restarting your life? Where do you need to exercise courage to follow God's word and do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing when it comes to restarting your life?
What fears do you need to face with courage in order to restart your life? What fears are keeping you from doing what needs to be done in order to become the person that God desires you to become?

Jesus and stealing...

Recently, I heard of a pastor who had made the statement that Jesus had His disciples steal a donkey. The pastor was referring to a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible where Jesus ordered two disciples to go ahead of Him into Jerusalem and get a donkey for Him to ride into Jerusalem. This story is in three of the accounts of Jesus life:

"Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. "If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,'Matthew 21:2-3a

As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, and said to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. "If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' you say, 'The Lord has need of it'; and immediately he will send it back here." They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. Some of the bystanders were saying to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, Mark 11:1-6a

When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples, saying, "Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. "If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' you shall say, 'The Lord has need of it.'" So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, "Why are you untying the colt?" They said, "The Lord has need of it." Luke 19:29-34

So, is Jesus commanding His disciples to steal a donkey? And if He was, is it a big deal? While it may not seem to be that important, the answer to these questions are incredibly significant.

First, if Jesus commanded the disciples to steal, then is calls into questions Jesus claim that He was God. It calls Jesus claim into question because the Bible clearly states that God commands all humanity to not steal:

"You shall not steal." Exodus 20:15

The Bible makes it very clear that God is eternal and never changing, so for Jesus to command His disciples to do something that God forbids would reveal the reality that He was not God.

Second, if Jesus commanded the disciples to steal, that would be sin. And if Jesus sinned, He would be unable to represent us and pay the penalty for our sins on the cross. Therefore, all of humanity would still be separated from the relationship with God that they were created for.

Third, we need to consider what is the definition of stealing. Stealing, by it's very nature, is taking something that is not your own with no intention of returning it. So, if Jesus is God in a bod who is the Co-Creator of the universe, could He steal something that He already owns?

Fourth, we need to consider that if Jesus commanded His disciples to steal, then one could easily say "if Jesus can steal, then why can't we?"

Fortunately for us, the accounts of Jesus life answer this question for us. Let's look at what happens in each of these accounts, beginning with the Gospel of Matthew:

saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. "If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and immediately he will send them." Matthew 21:2-4

Notice what happens in this passage. Jesus commands the disciples to go get the donkey. Jesus then explains that when they ask why they are taking the donkey they are to explain that "the Lord has need of them". When Jesus refers to Himself as the Lord here He is identifying Himself as being the Messiah, the King of the Jewish people. Jesus then explains that the owners will respond to this explanation by giving permission to take the donkey.

So, instead of stealing the donkey with no intention of returning the donkey, the owners and crowd give them permission to take and use the donkey. We see this also revealed in Mark's account of Jesus life:

As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, and said to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. "If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' you say, 'The Lord has need of it'; and immediately he will send it back here." They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. Some of the bystanders were saying to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. Mark 11:1-7

In Mark's account, we see that the disciples were given permission. That does not sound like stealing. And Luke's account of Jesus life affirms the previous two accounts of this story. While Luke did not add the statement about permission, that does not mean that it contradicts the previous two accounts. Instead we see these accounts of Jesus life compliment one another to paint a timeless picture of the life of Jesus fulfilling a prediction made hundreds of years earlier about His life.

So did Jesus command His disciples to steal a donkey? As we can clearly see in these accounts, the answer is a resounding no. Jesus, as God who created the universe, can not steal, because He is the owner of everything. And, as we see in these accounts, the owners and the crowds gave the disciples permission to take and use the donkey. They gave permission because the "Lord has need of them". They gave permission because their Lord and Savior requested them and the crowd and owners acknowledged that reality by giving permission.

To say that Jesus told His disciples to steal does not accurately communicate the timeless truth of this story and gives an extremely false and dangerous impression of who Jesus was and the life He calls us to live.

What do you think? Are there other stories of Jesus life that you have questions about?

Feeling Overwhelmed?

Last week, we started the New Year with a brand new sermon series in our church entitled restart. This series flowed out of the tendency that we have in our culture to spend the last days of a year looking back in the rear view mirror of the past year to reflect on the events and relationships that shaped our lives. And as a culture, we tend to make New Year’s Resolutions because we view the New Year as an opportunity to make a fresh start, to hit the restart button so to speak.

However, when it comes to hitting the restart button; when it comes to attempting to restart our lives through new year’s resolutions, there are often times where we can find ourselves experiencing frustration, tension and even trouble, isn’t there? We discussed that for many of us, we can find ourselves feeling that the whole idea of being able to hit restart in your life seems to be an impossibility after years wandering in a desert of hurt, pain, disappointment, and failure.

The tension and trouble that we can experience when it comes to restarting our life is not a new problem; it is a human nature problem. As a matter of fact, there is a letter in our Bible that records the efforts of an entire nation to restart their lives after forty years of wandering in a literal desert of hurt, pain, and failure. Let's look at the beginning of this letter, which is called the Book of Joshua, starting in Joshua 1:1:

Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' servant,

This letter begins with some straightforward facts that are incredibly significant. To understand why this opening statement was so significant, however, we first need to understand who Moses was and what his significance was to the Jewish people. We also need to understand the background of the Jewish people up to this point in God’s story. Moses was the leader of the Jewish people that God used to deliver them from slavery at the hands of the Egyptian nation. The Bible describes Moses as the most humble man who ever lived; a man who God spoke with face to face.

And it was Moses who God gave the responsibility to lead the Jewish people from Egypt to the land that God had promised them, which was located across the Jordan River and was called the Promised Land. As the Jewish people moved from Egypt and towards the Promised Land, however, problems began to arise. Instead of looking forward to the new start that God was delivering them to, the Jewish people instead chose to spend their time looking back. The Jewish people became a group that was marked by grumbling, complaining, and a lack of faithfulness toward God. And the closer and closer the Jewish people moved toward the Promised Land, the greater and greater their selfish complaining and rebellion grew.

Finally, at the doorstep to the Promised Land, twelve spies were sent to provide a report about the land that God had promised to give Jewish people. And as these spies returned from their journey, they described the beauty and blessings that the land would provide the people. But instead of trusting God to overcome the obstacles that were on the way to the Promised Land, these spies led the Jewish people to reject and rebel against God. All of the spies, except for Joshua and Caleb. Only Joshua and Caleb faithfully trusted God to bring them into the Promised Land.

God responded to the Jewish people’s selfish rebellion and rejection of Him by causing the entire adult population to wander in the desert until they died. Even Moses ended up not being permitted to enter into the Promised Land as a result of his disobedient failure to treat the Lord as sacred during a fit of frustration and anger with the Jewish people. So for forty years, between 1.5 and 2 million people wandered in the desert in frustration, failure and rebellion.

And at the end of forty years, Moses died, leaving Joshua and Caleb and over 1.5 million Jewish people under the age of forty left. Joshua was Moses right hand man, his trusted assistant who had a front row seat to see the relationship that God had with Moses. And now Joshua’s mentor Moses was dead and Joshua was left to lead the Jewish people. So with this background in mind we see God speak to Joshua and say the following:

Saying "Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. "From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. "No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

Here we see God command Joshua to take the reins of leadership from Moses and lead the Jewish nation of over 600,000 people into the land that God had promised them. In essence, God has commanded the Jewish people to hit the restart button. The Jewish people were to restart the journey that their parents had put on pause due to their selfishness and rebellion.

And to begin to restart their lives, the Jewish people were to cross the Jordan River. Now to fully understand the task that Joshua has been given, we need to keep several things in mind. First, consider the enormity of the group of people that were to cross the Jordan. The Bible tells us that there were 601,730 Jewish men over the age of twenty that were to cross the Jordan. That number does not include women or children, which is why most scholars believe that were between 1.5 and 2 million people that composed the Jewish nation.

Second, consider the Jordan River and the terrain around the region. The Jordan River served to separate the Promised Land from the land to which the Jewish nation had been wandering. The Jordan River runs through a deep gorge which may be called the earth’s deepest valley. The slopes are steep and sudden, and there were wide fluctuations in the water level and speed of the current.

Third, consider the size of the land that the Jewish people were to go in and possess. Here is a picture of the land that God had promised to the Jewish people. Promised Land picture. Most scholars believe that the Promised Land encompasses approximately 1,100 square miles, which would be the equivalent to the size of the state of Maryland. As you can see, the responsibility to lead the Jewish people as they restarted their lives was a task that was enormous in both size and in scope.

And with this enormous task, God provides Joshua an important promise. When God tells Joshua that no man will be able to stand before you; He is explaining to Joshua that no one will be able to resist or oppose him as he leads God’s people. But not only does God provide an important promise to Joshua; just as importantly, God tells Joshua that He will be present with him as he leads the Jewish people. If this letter was being written today as a text message or email, God would be saying “I will not let you down or bail on you”. You see, the question before the Jewish people, was not whether or not God had promised them the land, the only question was whether or not they were going to live their lives in a way that would enable them to receive those promise. And to receive those promises, the Jewish people needed to restart their lives when it came to following God.

Now imagine being Joshua; how would you respond to the enormous responsibility that has been laid upon you to lead this nation as they restarted their lives? Or maybe you are looking at restarting some area of your life. Maybe it is the task of restarting a relationship. Maybe it is the task of restarting a life that would be free from a destructive addiction or habit. Maybe it is the task of restarting a relationship with God that seems to be far and distant. Maybe it is the task of restarting a life that you feel has been a disappointing failure. Maybe you are here and as you look at the prospect of restarting your life, you feel overwhelmed with the enormity of the task.

And it is when we find ourselves in a place of feeling overwhelmed with the idea of restarting our lives that we feel the tension, frustration and trouble that can come with restarting. So the question then becomes, how do I overcome the enormity that I feel when it comes to restarting my life? And it is in this point of the story that God gives Joshua, and us today, a timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our life. We will look at that principle tomorrow.

So, what overwhelming task are you facing when it comes to restarting your life?

A New Year and a Restart in Student Ministries...

Recently, Pastor Kevin came to the Elders and expressed that God has called him to start a new church in Fort Mohave this August. As you might imagine, this is an incredible responsibility that needs one’s full attention and focus. As we met and prayed about what Kevin had shared, the Elder’s felt that the best thing that we could do to help Kevin fulfill the calling he believes God has placed on his life would be to release him from his responsibilities at City Bible Church so he could fully focus on starting a new church in Fort Mohave.

As a church, we will pay Kevin three months salary so that he and Codi can fully focus on fulfilling the calling that they believe they have received from God. We are so fortunate to have such a committed group of student ministry staff who will continue to love and serve the students of the Bullhead City area. We will still have many opportunities for students and 20 something’s to be a part of what God is doing here at City Bible Church, including our weekly gatherings on Wednesday nights. We are excited about the many things that will be happening this summer as well, including two mission’s trips and many other opportunities to love and serve our community while connecting with God and one another.

I will be meeting with the students on January 19th to answer any questions and share what God has next for Fusion ministries at City Bible Church. While this news is very sudden, we want you to feel free to connect with us with any questions that you may have. Most importantly, while we may be surprised by this sudden news, we know that God is not surprised. And as we have seen throughout this past year, it is often when we feel most uncertain that God is at work in the most powerful of ways. So let’s look forward to what God has in store for the students and the church in 2011 and beyond.

Pastor Dave

Resolving to Restart our Lives...

This week, we have been talking about the subject of New Year's Resolutions. Yesterday we discovered that followers of Jesus and the church are called to reveal and reflect Christ by how we love and serve the world around us. Jesus calls His followers to engage the world by loving and serving those who God has placed around us. And when we love and serve others in a way that reveals and reflects Christ, the result is that we glorify God in Heaven. When Christians live life together in community with a focus on engaging those in this city in a way that reveals and reflects Christ by loving and serving those in the city, we will be the vehicle that God uses to advance His kingdom mission and bring Him glory.

We ended by asking the question "How do I reach that goal and how do I get to a place in my life where I am following Jesus is a way that reveals and reflects Christ”? And my answer to those questions would be this; when we read the Bible, we consistently see that followers of Jesus who are involved in a growing and maturing relationship that reveals and reflects Christ invest their lives in three specific ways.

First, we see that those who are involved in a growing and maturing relationship with Christ invested their time with other Christians as they gathered corporately for regular weekly worship gatherings and as they scattered to experience community in homes throughout the week.

Second, we see that those who are involved in a growing and maturing relationship with Christ invested their talents serving God by serving others through the exercise of their spiritual gifts.

Third, we see that those who are involved in a growing and maturing relationship with Christ invested their treasure to support God’s kingdom mission through regular and proportional giving.

As a result of what we see in the Bible, we believe that as individual followers of Jesus consistently invest their time by being involved in a regular worship gathering and a community group; as individual followers of Jesus consistently invest their talents serving God by serving others through being a part of a ministry team; and as individual followers of Jesus consistently invest their treasure in order to help create environments where people can explore and grow in their faith while experiencing community, the result will be individual followers of Jesus and a church that is a city in a city that is striving to reveal and reflect Christ as we love and serve the city.

At the church where I serve, we desire to create environments where people grow in their relationship with Christ and are able to move from being consumers who view the church as a place where they receive spiritual goods and services to being investors who embrace and invest their time, talent, and treasure to advance the kingdom mission that God has given us.

However, when it comes to hitting the restart button; when it comes to attempting to restart our lives through new year’s resolutions, there are often times where we can find ourselves experiencing tension and even trouble, isn’t there? Maybe you have been trying to restart your life year after year only to find yourself drowning in a sea of regrets and failure. Maybe it is the regret is the result of a failure to restart a relationship. Maybe it is a regret that is the result of a failure to restart a life that would be free from a destructive addiction or habit. Maybe it is a regret that is the result of a failure to restart a relationship with God that seems to be far and distant. Maybe it is a regret that is the result of a failure to restart a life that you feel has been a disappointing failure. Maybe you are here and you feel that the whole idea of being able to hit restart in your life seems to an impossibility after years wandering in a desert of hurt, pain, disappointment, and failure.

Now if you are reading this and feel like I have just described you, I have some good news for you. While this may not seem like good news, the good news is that you are not the first person to experience life in the desert of failure when it comes to restarting your life. You see, the tension and trouble that we can experience when it comes to restarting our life is not a new problem; it is a human nature problem.

And the good news for us is that as we begin 2011, there is a story in the Bible that chronicles a group of people who experienced the same tension and trouble when it comes to restarting their lives. And for the weeks leading up to Easter, we are going to discover, through this story, the timeless landmines that can sabotage our attempts to restart our life.

We will also discover some timeless principles that enable us to restart our lives in a way that enables us to be all that God has created and called us to be. We will discover timeless principles that will help us move to a place in our lives where we are living in the relationship with God and one another so that we will be able to accomplish the goal that God has given us to be a city in a city that is striving to reveal and reflect Christ as we love and serve the city.

So, as we enter into a new year, let's journey together and resolve that as we restart a new year that we will end up moving closer to being all that God created and called us to be...

Resolving to be in the Right Position...

This week, we have been looking at how we tend to make New Year’s Resolutions because we view the New Year as an opportunity to make a fresh start, to hit the restart button so to speak. We view the New Year as a time to restart how we are living our lives.

Yesterday, we saw Jesus paint a word picture that His followers were to be the light of the world. Jesus point is that, as the light of the world, followers of Jesus are to reveal and reflect Jesus and help provide the guidance and direction necessary for people to be able to navigate life here on earth.

After providing this word picture what the world should see when they encounter His followers, Jesus continued by providing two additional images to challenge the crowds listening. Let’s look at these images together:

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Jesus begins His challenge to those listening with two additional word pictures. First, Jesus reminds the crowds listening of a timeless reality that they were all too familiar of: a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. A city that is located in an elevated location can be seen from miles away. In Jesus day, this would especially be the case after the sun set. In the pitch black darkness of the desert of Israel, the light of an elevated city would be seen for miles and miles.

Jesus then provides a second word picture, this time of a lamp that would be used to provide light in a home. Jesus explains that a person does not take the time to light a lamp and then place that lamp under a basket. That would make absolutely no sense. It would make absolutely no sense to place a lamp under a basket because then the lamp would not be functioning as it was designed. The lamp would not be fulfilling the purpose that it was created to fulfill.

Instead, Jesus reminds the crowds that a person would take the lamp and place it on a lampstand, which would place the lamp in an elevated position so that the light of the lamp would provide the maximum coverage possible in the house. For the light to fulfill its purpose to reveal, display, and to provide the opportunity for those in the house to navigate an otherwise dark environment, the light needed to be in the right position.

After painting these two word pictures, Jesus makes His challenge to the crowds who were listening unmistakably clear in Matthew 5:16:

"Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven".

Just like a city on a hill; just like a lamp that is placed on a lampstand, as Jesus followers we are to live our day to day lives in a way that reveals and reflects Christ to those around us. But Jesus does not simply tell the crowds to reveal and reflect Christ: Jesus also tells the crowds how they will reveal and reflect Christ.

Jesus explains that we will reveal and reflect Christ when we live our lives in such a way that the world around us may see our good works and glorify God who is in Heaven. Jesus here is calling the crowds listening, and us here today, to reveal and reflect Christ by how we love and serve the world around us. Jesus calls His followers to engage the world by loving and serving those who God has placed around us.

Did you know that the church is the only organization in the world that does not exist for the sake of its members? The church has been divinely designed to be the vehicle that God uses to reveal His Son Jesus to the world. And God places the local church in distinctive environments to be distinctively different. God has placed the church in the world to be a city within a city that loves and serves those around us.

And when we love and serve others in a way that reveals and reflects Christ, the result is that we glorify God in Heaven. When Christians live life together in community with a focus on engaging those in this city in a way that reveals and reflects Christ by loving and serving those in the city, we will be the vehicle that God uses to advance His kingdom mission and bring Him glory.

Now you might be wondering “well that’s great Dave, but how do I reach that goal and how do I get to a place in my life where I am following Jesus is a way that reveals and reflects Christ”? We will look at these questions tomorrow...

New Year's Resolutions...

In our culture, we have a tendency to spend the last days of the year looking back in the rear view mirror of the past year to reflect on the events and relationships that shaped our lives. And just like our culture, just like individuals, as a church we tend to look back and reflect on the events and the relationships that shaped us as a community in 2010.

And on New Year’s Eve, as the ball begins to drop in Times Square, as individuals and as a culture, we begin the transition from a time of reflection and evaluation to a time of hope and resolution. We begin the attempt to leave the past behind and begin a new year with a new and fresh slate and with new and fresh hope. And as part of that process, we sit down and make a list of what we are going to do differently in the New Year. We even have a name for that list, don’t we? We call that list our New Year’s Resolutions.

We tend to make New Year’s Resolutions because we view the New Year as an opportunity to make a fresh start, to hit the restart button so to speak. We view the New Year as a time to restart how we are living our lives. Now here is a question for us to wrestle with: As you think of the resolutions that you have made, do you think that those resolutions will lead you to the right goal? Because, the reality is that without having the right goal in mind, we will not be able to restart our lives in a way that enables us to be all that God has created and called us to be. But, this morning what should be on our New Year’s resolution list? What should our focus and our goal be as individuals and as a church as we hit the restart button in 2011?

Fortunately for us, in an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible, Jesus provides for us a timeless goal that we should strive towards, both as individuals and as a church. So let’s look at this timeless goal and its implications when it comes to restarting our lives, beginning in Matthew 5:14:

"You are the light of the world."

As part of perhaps the most famous sermon that Jesus ever preached, which we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus paints for the crowds listening to Him a word picture to describe what the world should see when they come into contact with His followers. Jesus explains to the crowds listening to Him that those who follow Him are the light of the world. Now light, by its very nature, has incredible impact and influence when it enters into an environment.

For example, just think what happens when you enter into a dark room that you have never been in before and turn on a light. When you enter a dark room that you have never been in before, do you have any idea what is in there? No, you have no idea. And because of that reality, we often find ourselves groping along the wall looking for the light switch, don’t we? But as soon as you turn on that light switch, what happens? As soon as you turn on the light switch, what is in the room is revealed to you isn’t it? As soon as you turn on that light switch, everything in the room is displayed for you to see. The whole point of the light is to reveal and to display what is present, in this case in the room.

But light does more than just reveal and display. Light, like the light that is emitted by a flashlight or the headlights of a car, also provides the guidance and direction that is necessary to navigate life on earth. Jesus point here is that in the same way, as the light of the world, followers of Jesus are to reveal and reflect Jesus and help provide the guidance and direction necessary for people to be able to navigate life here on earth.

After providing this word picture what the world should see when they encounter His followers, Jesus provides two additional images to challenge the crowds who were listening. We will look at those word pictures tomorrow.

So as you think about the concept of light, what other functions and purposes do you think light fulfills?