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Andrew Arndt shares some thoughts on the mystery of God.
Andrew, Ed, and Paul talk about fatherhood from the perspectives of three generations.
Imagine what it would be like if you could actually change. That’s the dream of this business of faith.
The final sermon from the series When God Breathes.
Andrew Arndt continues with the fourth message in “When God Breathes.”
Part three of Ed’s series on the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers.
The reason faith matters is because it’s what allows us to participate in this plan, this dream that’s unfolding in the world. We’re in the midst of celebrating the [season of] resurrection. When we ask, “what really took place there?” You have to back up and realize that God, in the very beginning, of this thing, has this wonderful dream to lay-out this world in which He would participate in. We mess it up right in the beginning. Yet, God chooses to chase us and not abandon us – not leaving us to our own demise and destruction. He chooses to jump into the middle of this thing and absorb all of our pain and the stuff we’ve messed up – taking it to the cross and the grave. When He [Jesus] comes out of the grave, something got set into motion that gives hope for the world; and we become part of that hope.
Somehow, when you do what you do as unto the Lord. You realize, this is what God wants. This is God’s will for me to participate – in this kindness, or in this action. That somehow, as we participate with doing what’s good, we get invigorated!
This business of resurrection, that we celebrate today is the most important holiday for the Christian church. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that if there is no resurrection; our faith is in vain. The scripture tells us that the reason this is true is because the greatest miracle God ever did was raising Christ from the dead.
Palm Sunday -- When the nation of Israel was jacked-up with hope, the hope was soon disappointed. Not because God didn’t act for them, He did. Rather, because He didn’t act for them the way they had expected Him to act for them. (Jesus came to bring peace. They wanted a conqueror to free them from Roman impressment). One of the messy things about faith is, that is true for us as well. God promises to act, but often the way He acts is not exactly what we wanted….
The whole idea of God’s motive and love for us, is best characterized in the Greek word “agape.” This is a love that is reckless. It is a love that isn’t based upon merit; nor on conditions. It’s a kind of love that’s based upon the person loving rather than that person being loved.
The two sides of spirituality
Spirituality has a very intellectual side to it, which is wonderful for people who like to think. But, there’s also a really deeply felt aspect of spirituality. This is the part where you need to use not just the part of the brain that’s logical, but the part that’s creative, aesthetic, and is rich with feeling – there’s emotion to it. The part of the brain that is more experiential than it is analytical. ….faith is the stuff of mystery.
God loves us and is for us. On some level, there should be a gesture in our souls that we want to say, as Paul said, we want to live pleasing to the Lord – we want to respond back. The Bible says we can love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, and strength. In other words, there’s a place for us to be intentional about our response to God – that we can love Him back.
I wish spirituality was really simple, real easy, but it’s not. When you’re honest about it, much of life is jacked-up with complexity .
This thng we’re in is an issue of faith. I wish it wasn’t. I wish it was just an issue of knowing, solid, with no uncertainty. The fact is, God is invisible. I wish He wasn’t. I wish it wasn’t the Goldilocks deal it is. The three bears get home and discover someone has been messing with their porridge, chairs, and beds. It isn’t until the end of the story that they run into that “someone” – Goldilocks. The reality is, it isn’t until the end of this journey that we run into Jesus Christ. The only thing we have are these little evidences, little nudgings of the soul, little things that change. When they change, you think, somebody’s been messing with this. I think it’s God….
An epiphany is when you see something that you didn’t previously see. What’s interesting about faith is that a huge part of faith is about seeing what you couldn’t see before. In fact, the whole idea about faith is you begin to perceive things which are unseen, and you become confident in what you can not see with your eyes because you’re seeing with eyes of faith. Scripture calls this the eyes of your heart; and you begin to see what you previously couldn’t see. Somehow, this journey of being apprentices of Christ is full of that idea. We need to understand that Christianity isn’t so much a religion where we run at God. Rather, it’s an experience where God shows stuff about himself, and we go “whoa, I never saw that!” And because you see it – it changes you.
