3-24-2018 - Humble Obedience

Sermon

Thesis: Following God's plans instead of bringing God into our own

Following God's plans instead of bringing God into our own

For kids: Making plans and having them changed

Making plans and having them changed

Me

“Man plans and God laughs.” – Traditional Yiddish proverb

Zack Glenn and I scared of taking the church planter test but wanting to be involved in church planting...

Why?

Job security

We know that we have 30some years before retirement and don't know if the existing churches will last that long.

Who will be here in 30 years?

Almost half the lifetime of St Mark

We

Retirement Report

"Each day, 10,000 baby boomers retire and begin receiving Medicare and Social Security benefits.”

–Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), writing in The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/articles/rob-portman-heading-off-the-entitlement-meltdown-1405983479), July 22, 2014

A reader asked about this line in Sen. Portman’s article, which warned of a looming budget crisis because of growth in entitlements. Could this figure possibly be true?

The Facts

Ten thousand people a day is certainly a big number. Over 365 days, that’s almost 4 million people. But then everything about the “Baby Boom” generation is pretty big.

There were 76 million people born between the years 1946 and 1964, the traditional window for the baby boom generation. That means that they will retire over a 19-year period. Simple math shows that 76 divided by 19 is 4 million, or almost 11,000 people a day.

Most of these retirees have plans for retirement they have made over many years... perhaps decades

Many of these plans will be drastically changed by

Children or grandchildren moving in with them

Emerging need to care for ailing parents

Battling illness themselves

Man plans and God laughs... but we often don't find it very funny ourselves.

Bear in mind this is a proverb created by people who were prevented from worshiping their God for nearly 2500 years.

This day... Palm Sunday, may have been the day that inspired this saying for the generations to come.

God

Scripture

Jesus followers we're almost exclusively Jews

Some had probably been with Him for three years

They have sacrificed much because they helped Jesus was the one who would set them free from Rome and take them back to the good all days they had heard about 1000 years earlier under king David.

If they had actually read the Scriptures containing the history of King David, they may have realized those days were nowhere near as good as they were told.

The game plan

11 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ ”

Go

Find

Bring

Questions

Who is this Lord?

4 They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5 some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. 7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields.

Went

Found

Found

Brought

Brought

Answers?

Answers?

Who is this Lord?

9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

Hosanna

Praise

Representative of Heaven

Representative of Heaven

Representative of us

Representative of us

Praise x 10

Praise x 10

A lot of excitement for nothing?

You

Celebration without transformation?

What kind of transformation?

Being a nicer person?

Sharing the mission

"An organization is any group that shares a mission together." - Monty Boyd

The kingdom of God is an organization with a mission.

What mission?

Great Co-Mision (Mission Together)

GO make disciples of Jesus Christ

MEET

BAPTIZING them in

MESH

and TEACHING them everything Jesus has taught us.

MENTOR

That is the tool we use to transform the word around us.

Which of these three things fits where you are today?

Which do you hear God's Spirit calling you toward?

We

Do we have another 30 years in us?

Are we willing to make flexible points and follow God faithfully through those decades?

If so, it is not our finance, trustees, worship, or lay leadership teams that are going to get us there.

It is our teams of leaders percent of them selves around that Mission Jesus gives us

Those of us who actively go out to share the gospel with the least, the last, and the lost - our MEET TEAM

Those of us who embody baptism by welcoming and connecting people into our church family and into the body of Christ – our MESH TEAM

And those of us who are committed to sharing every blessing of grace that God has given to us by teaching others raising them up into mature disciples of Jesus who can carry his mission into the next generation - our MENTOR TEAM

That's a plan you can take to the bank because it's not my plan. It is the mission that Jesus gave us.

We can change the names, we can change the people in charge,

but we will learn as the disciples it in the days leading up to Easter, that the biggest change they needed to take place and that still needs to take place… Is in ourselves.