The word is ALIVE

This past Sunday I was given the opportunity to share one of our Christmas messages.  I am grateful for any opportunity to share but there is always something special about Christmas messages and what you can accomplish in them.  Sharing of the baby Jesus and what it meant for humanity to have a saviour come and go through life just as we do.  To see God as a human suffering splinters and embarrassment and walking through temptations.  Or what it meant when in the narrative when Mary and Elizabeth were together and the baby in Elizabeth's womb leapt at the presence of Jesus in Mary's womb.

My choice was to present the idea that our original gift at Christmas was not only Jesus who is our saviour but was the Word.  What we know as our bible is in fact a gift we received long before we were on this earth.  Confused, join me as I break it down a little.

I read from Matthew 1:18-23 and briefly outlined the importance of the Old and New Testaments coming together in verses 21-23.  An angel appears to Joseph and instructs him to go forward with the marriage for the baby that Mary is carrying is conceived of the Holy Spirit, she is a virgin.  Joseph is instructed to name the baby Jesus - for he will save his people from their sins.  Then we are told of the prophet in the OT that told the message 'Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and he will be called Immanuel meaning, God is with us.'

The relevance of these two names for the baby and the meaning of them is what we next explored, outlining what it meant for the nation of Israel on that original Christmas morning and what this all means for us now, some 2000 plus years later.  The third name that we explored is The Word.  In John 1 Jesus is referred to by the title, the Word.  Which I will go into more depth shortly.

The importance of Jesus as 'Immanuel' and as 'Jesus' in name will never be lowered, will never lose function, will never cease to have power.  God is with us and He saves.  If the Christmas narrative ended here, with the prophecy and naming of Jesus, his majesty would not lose value, his character would hold its worth and he would still have the classification among all people that he does.  But the narrative continued, and we learned more, but thats another post, for another time.

Next I spent a few minutes on 4 titles we have either given the Word or titles that have come from scripture.  First the good news.  The bible is, in general terms, the story of how we are being drawn back tot he arms of God, through his workings in our life.  But in broader terms it is also the story of emotions, actions, various lives lived out, how God interacted with them, and how he is the only one who causes ALL things to work together for GOOD.  This is good news.  The bible is the story of many other things as well including the second title we have, God's story.  As mentioned it's the story of how he is bringing all his children back to him, it's how he is leading us from a people of no hope to realizing we are his children bought by a blood sacrifice and made new in Him.  It's the story of the Spirit coming to earth, being made accessible for all who would believe that we may walk in the power of God.  It's God's story that he wants to write on our hearts, it's his love story for the lost.

Life's guidebook, have you ever turned to those pages in the bible that are outlined as an index, with scripture passages to turn to when you are in need, when you are lonely, when you're feeling tempted, confused, lost, abandoned?  Life's guidebook.

Finally truth.  The bible is God breathed, it can be used for teaching and preaching, the words within it can be taken to any part of any country in this world and can be shared as truth because it is truth, and in that those words will change lives.  It isn't partial truth or somewhat truth or even mostly truth, it's absolute truth and that alone is what changes people.  You can take any system of living, any belief pattern and introduce the absolute truth of God's word to it and you will see the measure of the others, and which one changes lives more abundantly.

We finally studied a few things God himself called the bible.  In the pages of the Word there are titles God used.  Ephesians speaks of it being the 'Sword of the Spirit'.  What makes a difference in the spiritual realm is not how spiritual you are, it's how powerful the bible is.

John 1 paraphrased reads "In the beginning was the word, He was with God, He was God.... He became flesh".  So Jesus is the Word, he is the second person named in the Trinity and he is the living breathing Word of God.  Here's why the bible is powerful, it is Jesus in text.  He was there in the beginning, He was there during the flood, He was there with David hiding in a cave, He came and walked among us, and He is the WORD.  That first Christmas morning we were given a gift that will change our lives for the better, He is Jesus and He can be found in the pages of the bible, but he is also literally the Word, the bread of life.  When Jesus said man does not live by bread alone but on the Word of God, on the bread of life, he was referring to himself.  We do not live only by what we eat but we are found alive in the person and activity of Jesus Christ.  Which led to my last point.

Hebrews 4:12 - the Word is alive and active/strong.  Depending on what version of the bible you use one of these two words will be found, active or strong.  Both have the same relevance to this point.  Jesus being the Word, is alive, the Word being Jesus is alive, and He is active and strong.  If he is active and alive, that means he is among us, that means he is in us.  the conclusion can and must be made that we are changed by the truth of the bible because the Word is Jesus, and He is alive, and active.

The conclusion can also be made that when we are active in the Word, it is active in us.  When we are active in the things of God, He is active in us, and these two thing make our spiritual life stronger.  Ever found your self saying, God just doesn't speak to me, I don't think he does speak anymore.  My question in response to that comment will from this point forward be "How active are you in Him and the Word?"  If we expect God to be active in our lives but give no time to improve our journey with Him, how will he be active?  James 4:8 says "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you", the initial action is placed on us.  So the point is made in that statement, if we want God active in our lives, blessing us, interceding for us, changing us, we must be active in Him.  And to dispel the thought that maybe just maybe God is silent I leave you with a quote from AW Tozer.

God is not silent.
It is in the nature of God to speak.
The second person in the Trinity is called the Word.

Jesus is alive, the Word is alive, God does speak, sometimes loudly, sometimes softly, sometimes in dreams and visions or through others, but he is always speaking, and he is always active.

Merry Christmas

Dare to Move

As promised you will find below my notes from Friday nights gathering.  They do not encompass all our activities or all that was experienced.  In lieu of this I will do my best to recreate for you just what we were blessed with walking through during our first hour.  Feel free to ask any questions you may have and make any comments in regards to your participation during the night.

Dare to Move

2 Samuel 9

Context of why David’s decision to be kind was out of place and not popular.

Last Friday what we did was not popular in today’s culture, to leave a 60% tip after a meal, that’s not common for people your age or mine.

Are you tired of the normal everyday life?

Has the regular lost it’s edge?

Has the natural become boring?

Are you ready for more?

- Dare to Move -

What I have seen in the youth culture, is what I desire for each one of your lives.  I could show you videos and picture from youth events that were so far beyond the everyday, past regular and so not boring or natural.  I have seen the supernatural come face to face with kids aged 8 to 19 and they leave changed so drastically that who they came into a room as no longer existed.  People radically broken and altered because they experienced God on a Friday night at youth.  I have memories of conventions and retreats and camps where kids came in thinking they had everything they needed in life, and left after the weekend feeling like they had missed so much because God has opened their eyes and minds to so much more.  But those events are supposed to be the ‘iceberg’ moments of our lives.  What we experience here is supposed to prepare us for what could happen at convention, but we need to want it

                                       - Dare to Move - 

Our friday nights are intended to give you opportunity to connect with the super natural, a chance for you to experience God the way he wants you to.  It’s not popular or even common to have any communication with God, forget it being on such a deep level that you might actually cry or receive from Him, that’s almost unheard of for teenagers these days.  Think about it the creator of the world, wants to actually sit and have a conversation with you, not just ‘oh hey God, uh thanks for being you, k bye’  He wants to talk to you about who you are and who you can be.  I am tired of the everyday events on a Friday night.  My dream is to have the services that would prepare us for what convention and retreat weekends would hold.  That we would have an exciting worship time and we would experience God pouring out on us, I would love to see people in this room becoming the ones who share the message on Friday nights, that you would each start to see God work in your lives in new ways.  So make this dream yours as well, that we would be a group that gathers to make a difference in our community and see God move in our lives.

- Dare to Move -

In the midst of this message, about the moment we began to remember convention I spoke briefly about hearing the voice of God, that we are each made in such a way that we should be hearing frequently from God in some fashion, then I took a chance and asked who would like to hear from God who actually wants to hear him say something.  Unanimous, everyone in the room had a desire to hear from God, so I gave instruction to just listen, and i prayed briefly for God to speak, and we waited, and God moved.

One person responded that he had heard God whisper his name, perhaps God was giving knowledge that he does indeed know us, maybe he was allowing this young man to find a moment where he could really understand that God really does desire relationship with him.  Another spoke of a picture and a word he had received, one teenager became broken before all of us gathered, and God impacted her on the floor of our small room.  Maybe others heard some words, perhaps they saw pictures, but what can be said as truth, this was the first time since convention that God invaded our space and took the liberty to speak.  Why, because we gave him opportunity.  What was meant to be a message concerning the idea of moving towards loving even when it's not popular, became a moment of experiencing God move among us.

Truly an amazing moment in our journey.  Join us on this walk, to love others when no one else around will.  To have a relationship with God, when everybody else is saying that it's not normal.  To hear his voice, even when you think it's impossible.

Dare to Move.