“Transformation of the Ordinary”

This is here. It's great to be in worship with all of you. I know many of you but some of you I see some different faces. So this is really good. So after those One Pastor Aaron you can tell him just a little bit differently right to know that might give it away. But so glad to have you and worship this morning the kids did an awesome job didn't they?

I'm just so thankful for the the teachers and those volunteering their time and everybody volunteering to be able to get the kids some learning about Jesus and most of all who they are and whose they are in the midst of life that God loves them that they are valued beyond measure and that there are people in the church who love them and care for them deeply to be able to share their face with them and The Wider world. So I'm so thankful for that. And so thankful for the kids and the message that we receive. Shaving a message. There's somebody else who shared a message. His name was John the Baptist or Johnny the B. I like to call him and that says if we're two peas in a pod here, but John comes across he's kind of a Burly guy. He's a little bit a little bit on the edge of things. If you will he ate locusts and wild honey. He dressed with camel hair, and he was pretty Backwoods, but he had a message for the people and one that I hope we can here today as well. Don't be caught up to Watching how how maybe his statement is here, but we're going to explore this together this morning hear these words in Luke chapter 3 starting in verse 7. John said the crowds coming out to be baptized by John. You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming wrath produce fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves. We have Abraham as our Father for I tell you that I have the stones God can raise up children for Abraham the ax is already at the root of the trees and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. What should we do? Then? The crowd asked John answered the man with two tunics should share with him who has none and the one who has food. Should do the same. Tax Collectors also came to be baptized teacher. They asked what should we do? Don't collect any more than what you are required to John told them then some soldiers ask Tim. And what should we do? And he replied don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely be content with your pay the people were waiting expectantly and we're all wondering in our hearts of John might possibly be the Christ John answer them all I baptize you with water but one more powerful than I will come the throngs of whose sandals. I am not worthy to untie he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing Fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the weed into his barn but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God Amen and now Lord may your spirit indeed allow the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Oh God our Rock Our Redeemer and our friend and all God's people said amen. And amen.

more powerful in this world, then the realization that the creator of the universe is right beside us every single step of the way now if you're in

Life where you don't necessarily experience God being real close to you in a way it seems as if God is silent and got his checked out for a while. But in fact God really is there and that is the hope of Advent as we continue to go through as we look towards Christmas and the coming of Jesus Christ and ask the children taught us the transformation of life that takes place just like the candy cane being transformed into something that could give a message of Hope and healing and a forgiveness and of Grace but we have a very peculiar person bringing about this time of transformation in people's lives. I want to ask you this question for you to think and upon her a pain in your hearts as you hear these words this morning. I want you to ask or I want to ask you this question so you can answer it in your heart. What did you do when you experienced the life transforming power of Jesus Christ? What did you do? When you first experienced the realness of God's presence in your life through Jesus? What was it like for you in that moment?

That is the there we came from this life of of not following God and of going the wrong direction and all of a sudden God showed up just like Paul in the New Testament where he was Blinded By the Light of Christ in and he turned his life toward Jesus, whereas of most of us in this room. I'm sure that our stories are a little more subtle. Maybe it's something like where I grew up in the church and I was baptized in the church and I was confirmed in the church and I just know Jesus all my life, or maybe it's that yeah, you had a life transforming experience, but there's not a huge big story to go along with it. Nothing to where you were down in the in the pits of of your sin and of death and all of these things and being raised up and out of it, but let me tell you this friend your story is no less important. No less important no less meaningful and no less powerful than stories that we might consider to be more powerful. Because here's the deal the Agent of Change. The agent of transformation is God himself by the power of God's holy spirit. Amen proclaim the love of God through Jesus Christ. We proclaim a hole that never dies. We proclaim a life that is Everlasting a life. That is abundant. A life is full and a life that brings us joy. A life that brings us. Peace a life that brings us full list. Now John the Baptist Had A peculiar way of getting this out of people. He began as the crowds were coming to him to be baptized. Now. These crowds would have known that the Messiah was on his way. There was a messiah that was coming. But if we recall the people were picturing the Messiah coming in on his White Horse ready to take out the whole Roman Empire and everything that was evil and to take it all out. But God didn't come to us in that way. God came through a helpless babe a child. God came to us as one of us not coming with power and might as we would think of it as in our world away, but in the ways of the kingdom of God God came to us through Jesus.

But John the Baptist begins with telling these crowds that are coming to him for baptism that understood Jesus the Messiah to be coming and on his way. They didn't understand what he would be looking like but John the Baptist starts not by inviting them in but by calling them names your brood of vipers. Oh my basically calling them children of snakes. I don't know about you, but I don't know if I go to that church, you know, I really like you did you get there in the morning, child of snakes, you know, you're all children be like running the world is going on here, right? But the idea of being a child of snakes and called them as being pretty harsh and it did it really is for what he's doing here. Saying is that we come from ways that aren't always the most holy the most wholesome. We are broken. We are really kind of like a pit of snakes. I don't know about you, but I've I've experienced times where I've been in that pit. Maybe you have as well or sometimes our life just isn't adding up. But you see the idea here for Luke the writer of the Gospel of Luke. He speaks all throughout this gospel. If you were to sit down and read through the entire Gospel of Luke, you'll see that he talks a lot about the kingdom of God coming to Earth as it is in heaven, and he talks a lot about the idea that radical discipleship or following Jesus making him our Lord and savior required from is required from all who wish to break out of the crowd and to be Jesus disciples. We have to break out of the crowd mentality to really become Jesus disciples to really follow him to be a student of Jesus to follow in his ways. That's what it means to be a disciple. For John the Baptist baptism wasn't the way to flee the coming wrath or fire Insurance in that kind of way. He did say the Wrath that is to come which I mean some sort of end-times judgment kind of thing. But I think it's less about that and more about how we live our lives in an everyday fashion. Think about this you go to Meijer you're in the checkout line. You've got eight items and you're in the 10 items or less line or you're preparing to go there and someone cuts in front of you and they clearly have 15 items in their car. How do you react in that moment? Right. Do you act as Christ would or do you act a little differently or as you're driving in the fog? Let's say it's a Sunday morning. You're driving from Swartz Creek to Durand trying to make it on time and somebody's blinker fluid is leaking all over the place cuz they didn't use in a Ford right out front and so maybe flashing lights at am I don't know but

How do you respond in that situation? How do you act in that time? John the Baptist talks about the idea that the fruit that we bear in our lives is a measure of the repentance that we've sought in the sense that we desire dinner transformation. So that our lives could be different you see slapping a bumper sticker on your car that says Rapture Bounder or I'm a Christian or I go to such-and-such Second Church of the whatever and all this other stuff that's on there and slap a bumper sticker doesn't make you any more Christian than anybody else. But what makes a follower of Christ is actually following Christ, right? You've heard me use the illustration that I can go up to to Duran mobile and I can ask to go and sit in the car garage and I can I can sit on for tires. I can probably even hold on to a can of oil it was not a can in the more by the address of oil or something right and sit there and I can say broom broom. I'm still not a car right? I'm still not a car going to church doesn't make us a follower of Christ right going to church and worshiping Christ and serving in the church and serving others is something that develops out of a life with Christ. It is a result of a Life of Christ. Now at the same time, it can be a building block for us to get closer to Jesus because I don't know about you but I needed the church before I accepted Christ as my savior. I needed the church. I didn't know it but I did I needed the church and they brought me in by means of the the teen center that they had on on Friday nights. Yes, they had girls and they had free food. So that was my little my claim to fame at that time, right? Yeah. Yeah, right. Struck in the head games and I had fun activities and all that kind of stuff or what draw me what drew me in was their hospitality and the grace that they showed to us as we came in and we ate their food and we play their games we made a mess and we got to go home and we didn't have to clean it up, right? But then they invited us to church. They invited us to worship God in a worshipful atmosphere ride to to experience God's presence in a new way and it took a while before Easter vacation bible school been kicked out of Vacation Bible School different. That's a story for another day, but Regardless God was working on me even through all of those experiences and accommodated when I was 13 and was at church on that Sunday when the pastor invited me to accept Christ to say yes to God's already Yes of me. And from that day. My life has been different does it mean that I don't know I fall into things just as easy as anyone else. I try to live a life that honors God and honors others. So again, it's not about fire insurance as much as it is about the daily living today about the here and the now we need to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Or bear fruit that measures up to the Forgiveness that we seek and that we experience in God. It's one thing to say. I'm a Christian on Sunday, but then I live like it on Monday through Friday or Saturday. The question of Faith really is about are we living like Jesus on Sunday morning Monday morning Tuesday morning. You get the picture. Are we doing this on a daily basis? And they say are we attempting to live that way because the fact of the matter is none of us are perfect RV fentimans got it down pat. Let me know. We'll figure it out. Right? We're just not there but fruits are produced naturally from a good tree, right? You need to have a good Tree in order for this good fruit write. It just has to happen. That way you have to have good roots. You have to have a good system setup and so fruits worthy of repentance are not necessarily works, but they flow naturally out of us when we are forgiven. You may have experienced it in your life. You may have experienced it in others lives as well that they live a life that demonstrates God's love and mercy, and it seems to flow from them naturally. Seems to flow from them without much effort. In fact, we can look at the kids just as the kids were up here earlier and telling us about the story of Jesus. Yes in a very cute way and a very wonderful way that that helped us the kind of remember our childhood in some ways. But in a lot of ways think about the message that they shared with us this morning thinking about the power of that message a faith as a child that doesn't have all the junk that comes along with being an adult in the stand up here and she proclaimed that the blood of Jesus is the blood that saves us to stand up here and to Proclaim that God's grace is enough to cover all of our sins to stand up here into seeing and to proclaim the love that we so desperately need in our lives. And in this broken World a man. That's what it means to have faith like a child that my friends is fruit that is fruit of lives that are honoring God. in the midst of living their lives

I'm going to end with this. That are converted heart produces new works. It's not about works at the end of the day. It's about the person right but I converted a part produces good work. It's not necessarily as much about what we do as much as it is about realizing who we are and we realize who we are naturally do things that fit. Who does that make sense. I'm taking you on this little you're like connect the dots right, but it's our minds take a different course. No longer do we get frustrated at the things that used to frustrate us no longer continue to to to dive into things that we knew were wrong in the first place. But then chose to do them any way. We have a we have a conscience that we listen to for sure. But we believe and we find out when we discovered that that conscience really is tapped into the Holy Spirit and God's presence that it's God speaking to us not standing up there as some Overlord standing over us with his arms crossed. I don't do that arose after you into Oblivion to know. But standing over us to save my child, if you make this decision it is going to cause more harm than good because God cares for you God cares for me. So my question for you this morning.

Is how have you given your life over to Christ in? What ways is God calling you to give your life over to him because again, I don't know about you but I can speak for myself that I need to deny myself on a daily basis and many times. It's a moment-by-moment basis. I need to yield my life and all that I am. to Christ so that I can say God empty myself with me so that I can be used if you something else that John the Baptist said he said May I decrease so that he may increase friends? May we seek to do the same as we prepare for sharing Christmas with family with friends? Cuz we know all of the fun that the holidays bring out in some of our families right? Maybe all of our families right? Maybe that's the time where are our faith is tested. The most is around the dinner table when everybody's there, right? You know what I mean by everybody? Yeah, there's always that one. It's usually me. I'm usually the one that shows that you know, that's how it works. Right, but that's true right it is so So let us seek to be like Christ and again, it is far better to be loving than it is to be right. Hard to say even more difficult to do but let's seek to do that. Especially this Christmas. Amen. Amen. Well, actually now we're going I believe what's next is