Cornerstonekaty

Life on Mission

Matthew 9:35-10:1

One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is the story of four lepers outside the gates of Samaria, the capital of the Northern kingdom of Israel. It is not often that they take center stage in a story. Lepers were people with a skin disease that made them unclean and thus put outside the camp. At the time the story takes place, Samaria is under siege. The Syrian army from the North has taken their place around the city, letting nothing in or out. Inside the walls of the city, the people begin to run out of food. And while they are free within the city, the descreasing supply grows more and more expensive. It grows so expensive, that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver. Just to put that in perspective, a donkey was a work animal, not food. It was unclean according to Levitical laws to eat. Things are so bad that they are forced to eat work animals, and, as if that isn’t bad enough, they are down to the most inedible of parts—the head! 80 shekels is not small amount, either. It’s about 2 pounds of silver. As if this isn’t bad enough, they are selling dove’s dung for food. It is possible this was a phrase used to describe some terrible food, but it is also possible that it was literal dung, scavenged for undigested seeds. In other words, they are desperate. This is confirmed in that some have resorted to canabalism, eating their babies.

It is in the midst of such terrible conditions, with the most extreme sources of food are being sold for impossible sums that Elisha the prophet gives a prophecy.

But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” (2 Kings 7:1)

These are real foods, staples for the Israelite kitchen, and Elisha is saying they will be available tomorrow! Not only available, but cheap! It is news that sounds absurd given the present circumstances. It is too good to be true.

Does it happen? It does! How could this be? God caused the Syrian army to hear the sound of a great army of chariots and horses in the dark of night coming their way and it terrifies them so severely that they leave without gathering any of their tents or gear or supplies.

This is the stage for the 4 lepers. They too are starving as they sit at the gate of the city and have decided that their only hope is to seek food from the Syrian army. Their hunger has overcome their fear.

“Why are we sitting here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”

It is a last resort. But when they reach the Syrian camp, they find it empty of people but full of food and riches. They ate and drank and carried off silver and gold and clothing to hide for themselves. They go from famine to feasting, and from being the poorest of the poor to wealthy!

It is such a great parallel to the gospel. The one who puts his trust in Christ often does so because he recognizes that he is otherwise utterly lost. No other pursuit in life has fulfilled him and he finds himself empty and intuitively knows that he deserves to be treated like these lepers when it comes to their position in the camp-outsiders; unclean. And when that desperation finally drives him to Christ, he finds he has gone from a famine to feast for the soul. For that is the power of the gospel at work in a person’s spirit. He goes from spiritually poor, even bankrupt, to spiritually wealthy. It is news that seems utterly too good to be true! And yet it is. Paul describes this in

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:3)

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? (James 2:5)

It is a glorious moment when the gospel becomes real in your life. The gospel changes you.

Prayer and Confession

James 5:13-20

Baptism and the Promise of God

Colossians 2:6-15

Celebrate Recovery

Ephesians 4:17-32

Communion: The Lord's Presence

Exodus 24:1-11

Church and Ministry

Ephesians 4:11-16

If you remember we started this series on discipleship with a question: What is God doing in your life? You’ve had several weeks to think about that. Have you been able to come up with a list? Remember, the gospel is the power of God for salvation at work in you. So let me ask you another important question. 

What do you need to reach full maturity? 

If we were talking about your physical maturity, you might answer that in a variety of ways. Some of you might need better nutrition. Maybe you don’t have very good eating habits and your bodies are unhealthy as a result. Others of you might need better exercise routines. You might eat well but your lack of exercise leaves you weak and lethargic. Others might be sick or have something broken and need intervention to get on the right track. 

Do you know where we find good spiritual food? In the church. 

Do you know where we find good exercise? In the church

Do you know where we find good corrective help to get on the right track? In the church.

To reach maturity in Christ, which means to grow into Christlike character, we have been knit together as a church. Spiritual maturity for you, as an individual, is tied together with the spiritual maturity of the Church body as a whole. 

This is why Paul writes in verse 15-16,

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Let that sink in. Your spiritual maturity and my spiritual maturity are not mutually exclusive. They are tied together. What does that mean? It means that if you want to grow toward spiritual maturity, then you have a vested interest in me and I have a vested interest in you.

Spiritual maturity, therefore, is only found in the Church. You must find your place in it.

Church and Community

Colossians 3:12-17

Last week my son Mercer, who lives in Oregon, surprised us with an unannounced visit home. We had a great week together and it was sad to see him go. We talked the next day and he shared with me what he had come to realize: being part of a loving community is vital. He moved there 4 years ago and has worked in a variety of places and met a variety of people. He has plenty of friends. But he still feels the weight of loneliness often. During those four years I’ve encouraged him to find a church home, and while he’s agreed it’s a good idea, he hasn’t done it. But after this last trip home something clicked. He said to me, “dad, it’s beautiful up here in Oregon. There are so many amazing sights to see and things to do that I love, but without people who love you, its just not worth it. Having a healthy community around you is more important.”

My oldest son experienced something similar in the Spring of his freshman year of college. He called one night feeling homesick. I could hear it in his voice. I packed a bag and went out to visit him for a few days.

There experiences are far from unique. What were they missing? They were missing the love that can only be found inside a loving family. Now I recognize that not everyone has a positive family experience. For some, that sense of belonging has come within other forms of community. And if we don’t recognize our need for it, we will sooner or later find ourselves sinking. 

Sabbath Practice

Mark 2:23-28

After last week’s message on Sabbath Rest, one of our elders loaned me a book that describes in far more detail the things I was saying about the importance of sleep for your health, written by preeiminent neoroscientist and sleep expert, Dr. Mattew Walker. He concludes,

 

Sleep is of vital importance. It enhances our ability to learn and to make decisions, recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, and regulates our appetite.

 

Those are all pretty significant aspects of life, wouldn’t you say? So Let’s take another poll this week, though slightly different from last, now that you’ve had a week to consider the importance of sleep in your own life. How many of you did something different this week to try and get enough sleep, which is said to be between 7-9 hours a night?

Of course, last week the focus wasn’t on physical sleep but Sabbath Rest. Hopefully you walked away last week with some motivation to experience Sabbath Rest. So how many of you did something different this week to experience Sabbath rest?

If you didn't, I don’t blame you. We didn’t really talk about how you could. We talked about some important principles of Sabbath rest. We talked about how it is a gift from God. And we talked about how it is received by faith. And then we talked about how we are to “strive” to enter that rest. In other words, we were achowledging that God’s Sabbath given to us, is something we must work hard to enter. It seems paradoxical, I know. I hope, at the very least, that you walked away last week wanting to enter God’s rest; wanting to experience this rest for your soul. To help you in that, this week I want to spend more time talking about practicing the Sabbath. Because the reality of our need for it still exists. We need an answer to our soul’s weariness.

So, how do we practice it? We walk with Jesus. He is the Lord of the Sabbath.

This is what we see the disciples doing in this text from Mark 2. I chose this text because a window is open to see both activity of Jesus and the disciples on the Sabbath, and Jesus’ teaching on the Sabbath. Through this we can derive guidelines for practicing the Sabbath in light of its goal, as we walk with the giver of rest.

Sabbath Rest

Hebrews 4:9-13

There may be no greater need in today’s busy world than rest. People everywhere tap into this as a market with the rise of airbnb and vrbo, cruises, and timeshares. They are all selling rest and most of us are buying it. We buy it believing that it will somehow wipe away the weariness of our daily grind. And we love these times. We come home with good stories to share and memories to savor. We call them vacations. Who is not looking forward to a vacation?

As much as we love them, how much did they help in your need for rest? In my experience they seem to have one or two impacts. Which of these are like your own experience. You need a vacation from your vacation. When you get home from family outings and sight seeing, you’re often exhausted and you need more time to unwind. Or, you feel a bit of heartache because it creates more of a desire to escape your everyday life. 

The reality is, our vacations, as much as we might love them, don’t satisfy our need for rest. So, what will?

The Sabbath. It is why God gave it to you as a gift. So why don’t we feel rested as Christians? Why don’t we feel rested even when we are faithful to come each week to worship? Because we really don’t understand the Sabbath. 

I Have Determined

Genesis 6-8 Selected verses

In the story of Noah's faithfulness at the end of the world we see the faithfulness and power of our covenant God, who is at work today in his church to gather a people for himself from all nations.