This Week At Promise Church!

I want to thank everyone for their patience as we've been working diligently to move into our new space at the Galleria Shopping Center. It's hard to believe that our two month construction project is nearing its end and that NEXT WEEK - Sunday, December 9th - we'll be worshipping in our new space.

We will meet briefly that Sunday Morning (12/9) at 10:45am to have a closing ceremony at our old location before we travel by caravan to our new home for Worship and Celebration! There will also be a potluck lunch immediately following our Celebration! Susan Hutchens is coordinating the details of our potluck - so if you know you can bring an item to share with your church family contact her at susan@promisechurch.info or call her on her phone at 225-3425.

I look forward to seeing you THIS coming Sunday for our last full worship service in our OLD worship center. This coming Sunday begins the season of Advent and throughout Advent and leading up to Christmas we'll be talking about the spiritual side of "Expectation." You won't want to miss it!

Much Love,

Pastor Jay


Promise Church Christmas Open House

Dot Carneal will be hosting a Christmas Open House for all Promise Church members this coming Sunday (12/2) immediately following church at her new home at 159 Silverdale Cove in Jackson. Heavy O'Douevres and Soft Drinks will be served. All are welcome! No reservation is necessary. Directions to her home will be available in Sunday Morning's Worship Bulletin.

A Pilgrim Journey

Phil 4:4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I wonder if Jesus were to return today would he recognize his people as being a thankful people? This morning we've heard testimonies from members of our church who are thankful for the many ways God has moved in their lives. But what about the rest of us?

I want you to do a little imagination experiment with me. I want you to allow a picture to form in your mind just for a moment of what your life would look like if you were to recognize God - not you or someone else - but God as the sole provider of every good thing in your life?

Let me help you do this. What would it mean for you to say, "My job was given to me by God."
"My home and my family were gifts of God to me."
"My good health that I enjoy is God's way of being gracious to me."
"The food that I eat and the clothes that I wear are God's ways of reminding me that he fills me and covers me with his presence."
"My friends that I enjoy are God's means of letting me know that I am not alone."
"My spouse and my children are God's ways of saying to me that I'm now possess the maturity for the responsibility of nurturing another human life. It is God's wonderful expression to me that my life no longer has to revolve around ME."
"My church family is God's way of communicating to me my purpose in life and helping me to fulfill that purpose with the help of others."

You see, when we look at our lives from THIS perspective we cannot help but think to ourselves - "Thank you God for what I have."

I've been reading a book for some time on the history of those who came over on the Maylower by Nathanial Philbrick. It's a wonderfully readable book that describes the early days of the settlement at Plymouth and the amazing hardships faced by the pilgrims as they sought a new land to worship and be the church free of the persecution of King James of England (who authorized the King James Bible that many of us use!). When the pilgrims set sail for the new world in 1620 they had over a hundred human lives on the Mayflower willing to venture into a unknown place.

They arrived at their destination on November 9th - too late in the Fall to plant and harvest their own food - and so they had to rely on the generosity of the local Pokonoket Indians, their own hunting skills, and the grace of God to get them through the harsh New England Winter. Many died during that hard winter. When Spring came - only half of the original number of pilgrims had survived - around fifty.

Years later as their governor William Bradford reflected poetically on the difficulties they had experienced together and borrowing from a theme in Hebrews 13, he wrote:

Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust,
Fear not the things thou suffer must;
For, whom he loves he doth chastise,
And then all tears wipes from their eyes.

For Bradford, "every occurrence meant something." (Philbrick, 77) In the experience of the pilgrims, there was no place God was not - providing, forging, creating, and calling to holiness and faithfulness.

When God calls us to be his faithful people - he doesn't promise us comfort or security by the world's standards. Instead he calls us to a mission and a purpose. Being called out to reflect the character of God in the middle of a world in rebellion to God is going to be fraught with difficulty and a sense of separateness and at times even isolation.

I am confident that the Pilgrims who settled Plymouth were well aware of Deuternomy 31 and verse 6, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

And therein is our promise. On our journey - as fellow pilgrims in the faith - God is with us. He gives us courage and boldness. He directs our steps if we listen and are faithful. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

No matter how distant you may feel from God, know this. God is near to you. He has loved you from birth and has directed your steps. Even when we haven't always been faithful to him, HE has been faithful to us. He has faithfully called you to your divinely appointed purpose and is even now giving you everything you need to fulfill that call. He longs for you to say "yes" to him and live as His beloved child.

So what are you thankful for? Where do you see God active and alive in your life if only you will take a moment to be still and reflect on the course and direction of your life? How is God active today - and everyday - in your life providing goodness and blessing?

Take a moment right now and thank God for His awesome provision in your life. And let the peace of thanksgiving fill your hearts!

See you Sunday!

Pastor Jay

Kingdom Lives!

I meet a lot of people who are interested in getting to know God more intimately and experience His presence in their lives in a more powerful way. They attend conferences, read books, view DVD’s all bent on how to sense God’s presence in a more deeply moving way.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with educating oneself to the workings of the Spirit. In fact, in the world we live in – it seems like there are forces that are constantly trying to get us to see the world through their sets of lens. During an election season, for instance, our lives become translated into policy initiates that are debated by candidates for office. During an economic downturn, our lives become statistics for determining whether or not to raise the prime lending rate. Advertisers want us to know ourselves as consumers of their products – seeing consumption as a means for fulfilling our hidden longings! With all of the messages we hear about who we are and what purpose we serve in this world, a Spiritual message is a welcome one!

But I’d like to suggest this. Those who responded to Jesus’s call weren’t looking to “go deeper in the Spirit.” Rather they saw themselves as integral parts of God’s emerging kingdom made known primarily through the person of Jesus Christ. As they sought to live "kingdom lives" God took them ever deeper in their awareness of what He was doing in the world and further gifted them spiritually to be a part of the work!

There’s a difference. You see it’s all too easy to see ourselves as “consumers” of religion. Like consumers of soft-drinks we often want to taste the new and improved version when it comes out to see if it’s to our liking! We want to shop around and find the soft drink that’s right for me. Isn’t it the case that this is done with religion as well? Find the church that is tailored made to our own doctrinal tastes and preferences and then we’ll be happy – at least for a time – until someone new comes and proclaims that they possess the NEW or “cutting-edge” religious experience or worship style!

As you can imagine, this sort of thing has nothing to do with the kingdom of God as Jesus preached about it. Jesus’s version of the kingdom wasn’t about tailor made experiences as it was about complete and absolute submission of one’s entire being to the will and purposes of God.

Jesus said, “Mt 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

In other words, the kingdom of God isn’t intended to serve the purposes of people’s personal agendas for self help and “spiritual growth.” The “called out” live to serve within the boundaries of God’s kingdom and in fact have their total identity and “citizenship” defined by that kingdom.

I think one of the best places where we see the boundaries of God’s kingdom clearly idenitified is in the early chapters of Luke where Mary – the mother of Jesus- sings a song of joy and anticipation at the arrival of her child.

And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.” (Luke 1:46-55)

How this vision of the kingdom played itself out in the ministry of Jesus can be seen by Jesus’s sending of his apostles into every village preaching about the good news of God and the coming Kingdom.

Lk 9:1 When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 3 He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. 4 Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. 5 If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them.” 6 So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

The mission we are on as believers is God’s mission to which we have all been called to be Christ’s emissaries. We have been given the authority of Jesus to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God – indeed to live that kingdom – wherein happens healing and wholeness, life transformation, and outpourings of the miraculous Spirit! God gives us precisely what we need to fulfill the mission he is sending us on. No more, no less.

All of the glory belongs to God for the awesome inheritance we have been given. And so as I desire and long for a greater “experience of God” in my life I know that the place to begin my search is with answering God’s call to surrender my life to the purposes of kingdom life. As that happens, as Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “all these things will be given to you.”

To the Heart: Fear! and Fear Not!

If we were to identify one of the biggest obstacles to experiencing on a daily basis the presence of God in our lives – I would have to say that that obstacle is fear.

We fear losing our jobs or having our income reduced. We fear the price of gasoline going up. We fear being alone. We fear being too intimate with anyone. We fear for our children. We fear for our retirement. We fear for our health. We fear going to the gym. We fear not having any meaning in our life. We fear the meaning and purpose we hear from God.

In fact there are so many things we fear – or phobias – that we now have a name for each of our fears. Consider some of these and see if you can guess what they are:

Agrizoophobia The fear of wild animals
Anthopophobia Fear of people
Atychiphobia Fear of failure
Bromidrophobia Fear of body odor
Chorophobia Fear of dancing.
Gamophobia Fear of marriage.
Hypnophobia Fear of being hypnotized
Syngenesophobia Fear of relatives.
Phobophobia Fear of phobias!

(from The Complete List of Phobias
www.officediversions.com/discover/modules/news/article.php?storyid=398)

With all of this fear that we experience in life how is it that there is any room left for us to experience the kingdom of God?

Jesus wants for his disciples to live without fear – or as he says in our passage this morning from the Sermon on the Mount – without worry.

Indeed, Jesus looks to the sparrows of the air and the lilies of the field as an example of how to live day-to-day under the provision of God. The birds, he says, “do not sow nor reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” The flowers of the field, he says, “do not labor or spin” and yet they are more beautiful than Solomon in all of his riches and wealth.

So is Jesus’s answer to our stress and worry for us to simply give everything over to God and not worry about anything?

Well, yes and no.

As I was studying this week preparing for my message this morning, one thing kept recurring in scripture over and over. It was so obvious that I couldn’t dismiss it as a scriptural anomaly. It was too big and too important.

This was what I found. We are to have fear in life. In fact, there’s a pretty big fear we’re to have. We are instructed in scripture to live under this fear and let this fear give our lives direction and purpose – even to the point of ordering our days and lives.

Dt 6:1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

So that’s it. That’s the fear we’re supposed to have as children of God. The Israelites as they were beginning to enter the Promised Land and into the inheritance that God had promised them hundreds of years before were told that as long as they feared God things would go well with them in their new land.

But that was the catch wasn’t it. Not long after they had conquered the land of Canaan and made it their own they were becoming like those who they’d conquered.

Look at what God says later in Deuteronomy warning the Israelites against this very thing.

Dt 28:64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.

If I were an Israelite given this warning, I think I’d choose the Lord.

Note some of the things here that come when we don’t live in fear of God and instead give other things priority in our life. They will have no repose or rest. They will have an anxious mind. Their eyes will be weary with longing and their heart will despair. They will live in constant suspense and dread their days. They will have no confidence in the direction their life is taking.

Sound like anything you’ve experienced before?

Certainly, that’s a clue to the root behind why our lives seem so anxious and stressful at time. Could it be that our priorities are misplaced? That we’ve put all the wrong things before our love and obedience to God? That rather than fear God we fear the things of the world?

And let’s talk about what it means to fear God. It may seem unfashionable to talk about fearing God. That seems so Old Testament when the God we want to believe in and serve is the loving and merciful God of the New Testament who – we mistakenly believe – makes no demands on our life. That’s the God we think we prefer and we’ve been taught in our culture that exists. A God that demands obedience to his will and expects us to actually fear Him– well, that seems a little inconvenient to us right now. We’ll get back to you on that, God.

But if we take the time to actually read what the Bible speaks of the “fear of God” we see that it is described mostly in life-giving terms. To fear something that is rightly to be feared is to move in the direction of real life!

For instance, Ps 34:9 Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

Ps 85:9 Surely his salvation is near those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.

Pr 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline

Pr 8:13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.

Pr 10:27 The fear of the LORD adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.

Pr 14:27 The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.

Pr 19:23 The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

Job 28:28, “Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

So rather than “fear” fearing the Lord – if the outcome of fearing the Lord is LIFE then fearing the Lord is something we should seriously consider SO THAT we can live our lives WITHOUT fear! Does that make sense?

Fear, of course, can mean terror and dread at the idea of something. We can fear God’s wrath on our lives when we make choices that stand in rebellion to God’s way of love, life, and community. Often, the consequences of rebellion against God will seem like what we call “natural” consequences. If you don’t spend time with your spouse you’ll find yourselves having marital problems. If you aren’t intentional in the way you raise your children, then you’ll have children who lack respect for authority or lack a solid work ethic. If you aren’t honest and lack integrity then you’ll suffer the consequences of people not trusting you. God’s laws are like natural laws like gravity and the speed of light. Try to violate them and there will be unpleasant consequences.

Fearing God is supposed to keep us living within what we know to be God’s moral, ethical, and communal laws. Laws that aren’t so much laws in the legal sense as they are just good sense and describe simply the way people work and live together when they are living at their best.

So what does it mean to fear God?

First, it means to place God back in His rightful place as Lord and Master of your life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his book The Cost of Discipleship, “It is senseless to pretend we can make provision because we cannot alter the circumstances of this world. Since we cannot take care, since we are so completely powerless, we ought not to do it either. If we do, we are dethroning God and presuming to rule the world ourselves.” (Bonhoeffer, 179)

In other words, who’s Lord of your life? Is it God? Or is it you with all of your desires and wounded-ness and cravings?

If it is me – if I’m Lord of my life – then I will always be frustrated by my own inability to satisfy my desires for all the things I think I deserve from life. If it is me – if I’m the Lord of my life – then my life will always – without exception be structured around filling the needs I think I have or constantly striving to fill the emptiness that I experience in my life.

Only God can give me the things I truly need. And God will only give me the blessings He believes necessary for my life and my life’s mission. Indeed, nothing is wasted in God’s economy. And still, the voice we hear to become the Lord of our own lives so often sounds to us so very reasonable and logical.

Leanne Payne in her book The Healing Presence describes the voice we hear tempting us to become the Lord of our own lives. “The tempter of our souls now says to us: ‘I want you to see yourself walking alongside yourself; I want you to gain a sentimental view of yourself as noble, or great, or tragic. I want you to gain a dramatic view of yourself as the center of all things, and then pity yourself when you are not.’” (Payne, 72)

Fearing God means that we fear the consequences of NOT obeying God. Jesus says, Lk 12:4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”

Many of us have already experienced the results of leading a life oriented away from God rather than oriented toward God. We’ve become in that time well acquainted with despair and depression. We’ve known all too well the emptiness of being our owns gods, of feeling addicted to being loved or feeling good or being satiated only to find that there is no end to that addiction. For many of us those experiences would be the closest thing here on earth that we would come to describe as “hell.”

And the mere memory of those times in our life is enough to make us RUN the other direction toward LIFE and obedience and Christ-like love. Who wants to experience that level of pain and frustration again when we know what will set us back on the right path of life!

Having tasted what it’s like to know God, there’s nothing that can compare to being filled with the Holy Spirit, having the confidence of God’s love, and knowing that God is the source of every blessing. With that knowledge of what’s real, there’s no desire to substitute it with anything else – anything “less than” – our desire is only for the REAL LIFE we have in God.

Joyce Meyer in her influential book Battlefield of the Mind says,

“It is clear that God’s children are not to be like the world! The world seeks after these things, but we are to seek the Lord. He has promised that if we will do that, He will add to us all these things he knows we need. We must learn to seek God’s face and not His hand! Our heavenly Father delights in giving His children good things, but only if we are not seeking after them.” (Meyer 123-124)

Fearing God also means living in awe of what God has done and is doing in history. It is living with the recognition that God chose a people to be his own to be a living witness to his love for creation – to serve him in righteousness – and to live in their inheritance. It is to know that even the called out of God sometimes disobey and have their blessing removed until that time they are ready again to live in that blessing. It is knowledge that God sent his son so that everyone may enter that blessing – that everyone might receive the call to holiness and righteousness and experience the good things God has made in this world. It is the recognition that God is at work even today in human history and is still the Lord of world events and of the salvation of all humanity through the church.

Fearing God means that we see our own part in that awesome plan. It means that we surrender ourselves to that plan willingly because we know deep down – in a way that only the Spirit can confirm in our hearts – that God is good, His plan is good, His blessings are good, His kingdom is good, His holiness and righteousness are good things. We are awed by the work of God as we put on “new eyes to see” what God is doing in the world.

Marc Jolley in the Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible observes, “To fear God, then, is to be completely devoted to his will and its rewards while knowing the awesome consequences of not fearing him.” (EDOB, 457 “Fear”)

This morning, the scripture we looked has Jesus telling his hearers not to be anxious for anything in their lives. Jesus’s way of saying Fear! and Fear Not! Is to say, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the things that you worry about, all the things that cause you anxiety, all the things that keep you awake at night, all the things that are the true and good desires of your heart – fear God, seek his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.” (Mt. 6:33)

What is left for you to surrender to God? What areas have you kept to yourself to remain under your control? This morning what areas are you ready to let God take over and say to him, You’re the Lord of my life – all of my life – and I give everything I am to you. I am ready to live in your blessing and to no longer fear anything that comes my way. Because today, I know that you are God. Not me, but you. And with you as Lord, I have nothing to fear. And with nothing to fear, I can live life with joy and purpose and boldness.

This morning you have an opportunity to make a decision. I don’t care how long you’ve been a Christian or how spiritual your walk with God has been this morning is an opportunity being given to you by God to hand over everything in your life to Him and claim HIM as Lord of your life!

Maybe you’d like to give your life to Jesus this very day. As we take communion together, I’d like to invite you to meet with one of our prayer partners up front here and tell them that you’d like to pray for God’s salvation this morning.

Let us pray.

Be a Mountain Mover!

Phil 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I find it telling that Paul here connects having peace so closely with the act of rejoicing in the Lord. Note that he tells the Philippian church first to rejoice - to find joy and celebrate something that is happening in their midst. And not just to rejoice or find joy - but to rejoice in the Lord - in other words - find the joy in what God is doing in their community.

So often, we find ourselves despairing over something in our lives because we can't see a way out of difficult circumstances. We feel boxed-in thinking that what we're going through right now is what we must go through for the forseable future. And at the time, the thought of experiencing on-going pain and suffering is enough to bring on a dark cloud of negativity and hopelessness through which no light can seem to break through.

But Paul's antidote to that is an act of celebration. Rejoice, he says. Instead of focusing your attention on what you don't have or what is coming against you - focus instead on the good gifts that you have been given by God and how God is working presently in your life for good. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Ro 8:28) And "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Ro 8:31-32)

If God has chosen us for his service then He is not going to abandon us to suffer alone. God stands beside us in facing life's troubles. He uses them to create in us an even larger capacity to love and serve and minister. In the power of his Holy Spirit, we can wake up each morning and instead of dwelling on the things we believe won't go our way, we can actively engage the day looking for the ways we cooperate with the Holy Spirit to make God's kingdom happen.

That, by itself, is a cause of rejoicing. Simply knowing that my life, my words, and my behaviors contribute in some small part to the overarching plan and purposes of God helps me to see past momentary difficulties. In fact, those difficulties become nothing more than opportunities for me to grow stronger in my faith and service to the Lord. When I face hard times, if I am oriented toward God with "eyes to see and ears to hear" then I won't be able to help increasing my dependence upon the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. Do that often enough, and you'll be moving mountains with the faith of a mustard seed! (Mt 17:20)

God is calling us in these times to grow into "mountain-movers" for the kingdom. When so much around us seems to run counter to the spirit of God's kingdom - the church is needed - everyone praying, loving, and serving together - to move huge mountains of poverty, despair, depression and darkness, violence, injustice, division, ignorance, and sin!

Are you a mountain-mover? Are you praying in the Spirit daily for bulwarks of God's kingdom to replace the high places - the mountains - of wordly value? Find an opportunity each day to rejoice in all of the ways you see God's kingdom overtaking the mountains. As Paul says, "Rejoice... and let the peace of Christ guard your hearts."