Participate in 2008

New Years Resolutions

The tradition of the New Year's Resolutions goes all the way back to 153 B.C. Janus, a mythical king of early Rome was placed at the head of the calendar.

With two faces, Janus could look back on past events and forward to the future. Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.

What resolutions have we made?

  • Loose Weight / Start Exercising
  • Improve Finances / Get out of Debt
  • Stop Smoking
  • More time with Family and Friends
  • Learn Something New
  • Read the Bible
  • o Example - Drew Carey on "The Power of 100"

Statistic: 30% of all resolutions are broken within the first week.

  • - Many more are gone by the end of January.
  • - Fewer than 20% actually follow through with them

Resolutions we can keep

FOR WOMEN:

  • Give up exercising. FOREVER! All it does it make you sweat like a hog and work up an enormous appetite.
  • Burn toast. Rye, wheat, oat bran, raisin.
  • Lose your keys, remote and cell phone, on fairly regular basis.
  • Stick your fingernail through your panty hose.
  • Gain ten pounds all in your hips, tummy and thighs.
  • Eat as much milk chocolate as you like.
  • Over water or under water plants. Make them turn a pathetic shade of yellow.

FOR GUYS:

  • Forget to take out the garbage.
  • Don't fix anything around the house. Painting and maintaining inclusive.
  • Leave toilet seat up.
  • Fall asleep on couch, with large bag of potato chips.
  • Play video games (shoot Nazis and bomb small villages).
  • Forget anniversaries, birthdays and Valentine's Day.
  • Watch all sports.

Why don't we follow up on our resolutions and goals?

1.  VALUES

Values are the hard-wired motives of our lives.

Habits of the Heart (Robert Bellah)

  • Resolutions reflect our ASPRIATIONAL VALUES
  • Actions reflect our ACTUAL VALUES

So the key question is - How do we push our aspirations into actualization?

            * Perspiration rhymes, but doesn't work

Take a moment and think of your core values in life.

 

Core Value

Evidence of Walking the Talk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Core Value

Evidence of Walking the Talk

Family: The best test of my character and ministry is Shannon & Tahlia, therefore I must lead them, pastor them, challenge them and pray for them.

Honor day off, weekly practical ways of showing love to them.  Give them my best emotional reserves.

 

CGS Values:

  • We believe that the Gospel of Jesus changes everything; therefore we preach, teach and celebrate the Good News.
  • We believe that God calls us to help Spiritual Wanderers follow Jesus; therefore we are called to reach out with love to the community around us and share the gospel with them in a way they can understand.
  • We believe that connected relationships are valuable and that these relationships should honor the significance of diverse people; therefore we follow Jesus' example of acceptance, grace and value.
  • We believe that we have a personal relationship with God that impacts our lives, ministries and activities; therefore we pray because He hears and answers.
  • We believe that the church must be an aligned group of servants; therefore we will help people discover their personal expressions of God's mission.
  • We believe that spiritual growth is necessary and desirable; therefore we equip and encourage people to continually strengthen their relationship with God.

2.  The Values of a Disciple

This is for everyone.  Not just the upper-crust, really into it religious types.

  • Not said to the 12 disciples
  • Given to a mass of people, men & women, young & old
  • "ANYONE comes to me ... he cannot be my disciple"

#1  Jesus Is First

v. 26    "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life-he cannot be my disciple.

(indebted to Tim Keller here)

Bible - Hate actively <or> Hate comparatively

Genesis 29 - Jacob with two wives: Leah & Rachel

Says 2x - "Jacob loved Rachel but hated Leah"

  • Jacob didn't actively hate her
  • He treated her well
  • Didn't beat her
  • Spoke kindly

v.30 - Jacob loved Rachel more

- Compared to how he treated Rachel, his attitude to Leah is "hate"

Example - Iowa Caucus

            Every vote made two statements

            * I vote FOR my candidate

            * I vote AGAINST the other candidate

  • If forced to choose, I will choose Jesus - every time
  • If loving Jesus will cost me the love of my family (which it often did in the early church and still does in some parts of the world)
  • I will choose Jesus
  • If loving Jesus costs me the affection of my best friends
  • I will choose Jesus
  • If loving Jesus costs me the satisfaction I gained from the pursuits, activities and habits I used to enjoy
  • I will choose Jesus

With my one and only life, I vote for Jesus

With my one and only life, I vote against every other short-termed and ultimately unsatisfying affection and distraction.

I choose Jesus.

Example: Vision Nationals & Arjuna Chiguluri

  • Christmas Caroling in India
  • Their group was beaten, one put in the hospital because his liver was so badly damaged that he may die
  • Prayer request sent back to the US - Pray for us, we're going caroling again tomorrow.

What is Jesus saying?

  • A disciple is someone who loves Jesus.
  • Look at these kinds of love
  • Father & Mother - storge love / familial love
  • Wife - eros love
  • Children
  • Brothers, Sisters, Friends
  • Self-Love

- Jesus is taking every sort of love - erotic, affection, family and friendship

  • I want & I offer a sort that makes all these loves pale by comparison
  • Compared to your attitude and affection towards Jesus, all other sorts of love should feel like HATE.

This is a searching test ... at least it is for me.

  • Jesus is asking for more than a decision of our will
  • Jesus is asking for more than actions made out of a sense of obligation
  • Jesus is saying "You're not a disciple unless you are emotional about me."
  • Love me - I want to be the Rachel

We could water this down and say "Jesus wants us to put him first"

  • it does mean that
  • but he doesn't say it that way
  • In other places he says things that tell us that he must come first
  • But Jesus isn't just talking about importance and priority,
  • He's talking about love.
  • Delight

Rom 5:3-5 "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Don't think you're a disciple just because you're here every time the church doors open

Don't think you're saved just because you're doing the right thing.

Jesus is saying "LOVE ME"

Augustine in The Confessions

  • The key to a transformed character, to a great life, to peace, courage, forgiveness, the key to the sort of heart you want to have is not will power, hard work or perspiration.
  • It is the right ordering of our loves.
  • Not saying to love Jesus first, family second, etc
  • Love Jesus, and find all other loves in the context of loving Him

#2 The Mission Consumes Our Lives: Disciples must turn the corner from "US" to "THEM" because of "HIM"

Context of this passage

  • This is ½ way in Jesus' journey to Jerusalem.
  • For the first half, he's been challenging the Jewish people, especially the scribes & Pharisees
  • Ch 13 heading sums up his message "Repent or Perish!"
  • In this section Jesus shifts his attention
  • He turns away from the religious people and focuses on his disciples
  • Training them for the mission
  • Giving them the tools and priorities that will guide the rest of their lives - and through them the rest of history.
  • Luke 14:15-21- The Parable of the Banquet
  • The invited guests didn't show up
  • Excuses
  • Bought a field
  • New team of oxen
  • Just got married
  • Poor, crippled, blind and lame
  • Still room
  • Roads and country lands - highways and byways
  • V.23-24 "..make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet."
  • Luke 15 - The Parables of Lost Things
  • Lost Sheep
  • Lost Coin
  • Lost Son

Crystal Clear Message

  • The message of Jesus is not about "US"
  • If we are saved THANK GOD!
  • Then move on and take it to "them"

Illustration from Richard Baxter - The Reformed Pastor

What if you were given a cup of Jesus' blood.  How carefully would you treat it?  With what reverence would you maintain it and care for it?

How much more reverently and carefully should we treat the people who have been purchased by His blood?

Revelation 5:9 with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

#3  Selflessness

v.27 "And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Rick Warren - the Purpose Driven Life Chapter 1 - IT'S NOT ABOUT ME.

It's never about me.

"Pick up my Cross"

What a symbol!  We're numb to it now, but imagine someone on the news today getting ready for the New Hampshire Primary.

-Vote for me!  Strap yourself in the electric chair and join my team.

- Put on your blindfold, smoke your last cigarette, and listen to the rifle-shots from the firing squad - unless you do that you shouldn't even vote for me.

Why such strong language?

Two Reasons:

1)  Because following Jesus will not always be easy.

Ordering our loves so that Jesus eclipses all other passions

Following the mission

This cuts against the grain.

Rom 12 - we are living sacrifices

            But we try to crawl off the altar.

2) Because crucifixion is a slow, gradual death

Jesus doesn't demand perfection immediately.

But he demands commitment.

When you see someone carrying a cross you know a few things

            1) they aren't dead yet

            2) they will be soon

            3) there is no turning back

  • I've already gotten e-mails about the call to commitment that's in your bulletin.
  • Some of you might be reading it saying "I can't promise that, I'm not good enough."

The question in following Jesus isn't, "Are you perfectly committed and perfectly following today."

The question is, "Are you willing to strap yourself in and strive for this.  Failing, repenting, drinking deeply of grace along the way...will you pick up your cross and tell the world that even though you're not dead to sin yet, you're on your way and that for you there is no turning back."

That's why we have to be selfless.

If it's about me, then its up to me.

But it's about him - so I'm casting my vote, making my stand and choosing Jesus.

3.  Turning Discipleship Values into Reality

Two metaphors - building a tower & going to war

Consider the cost

What will it take?

Do I have the capabilities?

In negotiation this war - do I have the capabilities?

Can I win against God and His demands on my own strength?

Or do I need to appeal to the gracious terms of surrender that He gives us.

Rom 5:1-2       Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God

Mental

Will

Social

Emotion - Right ordering of our affections

We've disappointed our parents - like a cloud

            Relationship

            Career

- These fill us with disappointment, fear, regret, anxiety

Either #1 - actively try to hate

            What do they know

            Sour grapes

            I didn't want that anyways

            * try to harden our heart and not love these things so much

Or #2 - love God more

            To move from a coward to courageous

            To move from bitter to peace

            To move from self-loathing to self-confidence

The essence of a transformed character

Is to hate these things comparatively

To so love Jesus that these things no longer have you by the throat

- Scott Putrick

            I have my faith and my family - nothing else matters

4.  Call to Radical Commitment

Today I am stepping across the line. I'm tired of waffling, and I'm finished with wavering. I've made my choice; the verdict is in; and my decision is irrevocable. I'm going God's way. There's no turning back now!

I will live the rest of my life serving God's purposes with God's people on God's planet for God's glory. As long as God gives me life I will be changed by the Gospel, grow in His character, and serve in His family.

Since my past has been forgiven, and I have a purpose for living and a home waiting in heaven, I refuse to waste any more time or energy on shallow living, petty thinking, trivial talking, thoughtless doing, useless regretting, hurtful resenting, or faithless worrying.

Instead I will magnify God, grow to maturity, serve in ministry, and fulfill my mission in the membership of his family.

Because this life is preparation for the next, I will value worship over wealth, "we" over "me," character over comfort, service over status, and people over possessions, position, and pleasures. I know what matters most, and I'll give it all I've got. I'll do the best I can with what I have for Jesus Christ today.

I won't be captivated by culture, manipulated by critics, motivated by praise, frustrated by problems, debilitated by temptation, or intimidated by the devil. I'll keep running my race with my eyes on the goal, not the sidelines or those running by me.

When times get tough, and I get tired, I won't back up, back off, back down, back out, or backslide. I'll just keep moving forward by God's grace. I'm Spirit-led, purpose-driven and mission-focused, so I cannot be bought, I will not be compromised, and I shall not quit until I finish the race.

I'm a trophy of God's amazing grace, so I will be gracious to everyone, grateful for everyday, and generous with everything that God entrusts to me.

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I say: However, whenever, wherever, and whatever you ask me to do, my answer in advance is yes! Wherever you lead and whatever the cost, I'm ready. Anytime. Anywhere. Anyway.

Whatever it takes Lord; whatever it takes!

I want to be used by you in such a way, that on that final day I'll hear you say, "Well done, thou good and faithful one. Come on in, and let the eternal party begin!"

Today, I affirm this commitment to God and submit to his plans and purposes for my life, no matter what it takes.

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