A Familiar Jesus (3)

Gathering

Welcome

Announcements

FTN July 15th - volunteers, 4-6

past Thursday 111 people. 64 families.

Men’s breakfast. Next Wed. June 30

Need Volunteers for Nursery and Children’s ministries.

S/S 9:45- 10:45

PPR July 13th 6:00 pm.

BIRTHDAYS AND ANNIVERSARIES

Opening Prayer

Call to Worship

Affirmation

Historic Creeds and Confessions (Apostles’ Creed)

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried; The third day he rose again from the dead He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Song of Affirmation

Special Music

Psalter Lesson

Psalm 48 ESV

A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. 1 Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, 2 beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. 3 Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress. 4 For behold, the kings assembled; they came on together. 5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic; they took to flight. 6 Trembling took hold of them there, anguish as of a woman in labor. 7 By the east wind you shattered the ships of Tarshish. 8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, which God will establish forever. Selah 9 We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple. 10 As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness. 11 Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments! 12 Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, 13 consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation 14 that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever.

Special Music

Pastoral Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen

Offering

Doxology

Special Music

Mark 6:1–6 (ESV)

1 He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief.

INTRO

Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

Jesus came from a large family. We don’t think of Jesus in this way. But the folks of Nazareth did. They remembered Jesus as the boy who grew up in their town. They were familiar with Jesus. They preferred him they way he was back then.

Familiarity many have studied it, There is actually a science of familiarity.

It is used heavily in the marketing industry.

Familiarity and Trust: Measuring Familiarity with a Web Site

Jie Zhang Faculty of Computer Science University of New Brunswick Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3, Canada Email: [e-mail]

Ali. A. Ghorbani Faculty of Computer Science University of New Brunswick Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3, Canada

In this study Ghorbani and Zhang set up a website for volunteers to use. They studied the users responses to the Web sight over an extended period. They found that users responded favorably when the website was familiar and predictable. By making it functional and good and then leaving it alone, users became familiar with the website. As a result trust was built and user interaction with the website increased.

However when changes were made, trust was lost and user interaction decreased.

“Web users crave familiarity, General Web users would love it if all our sites looked like Amazon.com. Unfamiliar things in a Web site will give a user reason to pause. As a result, the access and transaction rates will drop off.”

Unfamiliar things will give a user reason to pause.

We don’t like the unfamiliar.

We don’t like change. It is our human nature to not trust change.

Coca Cola

To hear some tell it, April 23, 1985, was a day that will live in marketing infamy.

On that day, The Coca-Cola Company took arguably the biggest risk in consumer goods history, announcing that it was changing the formula for the world's most popular soft drink, and spawning consumer angst the likes of which no business has ever seen.

The Coca-Cola Company introduced reformulated Coca-Cola, often referred to as "new Coke," marking the first formula change in 99 years. The company didn't set out to create the firestorm of consumer protest that ensued; instead, The Coca-Cola Company intended to re-energize its Coca-Cola brand and the cola category in its largest market, the United States. That firestorm ended with the return of the original formula, now called Coca-Cola classic, a few months later. The return of original formula Coca-Cola on July 11, 1985, put the cap on 79 days that revolutionized the soft-drink industry, transformed The Coca-Cola Company and stands today as testimony to the power of taking intelligent risks, even when they don't quite work as intended. "We set out to change the dynamics of sugar colas in the United States, and we did exactly that -- albeit not in the way we had planned," then chairman and chief executive officer Roberto Goizueta said in 1995 at a special employee event honoring the 10-year anniversary of "new Coke." "But the most significant result of 'new Coke' by far," Mr. Goizueta said, "was that it sent an incredibly powerful signal ... a signal that we really were ready to do whatever was necessary to build value for the owners of our business."

Factors That Shaped the Launch Decision The story of "new Coke" is widely recalled, but the context is often forgotten. In 1985, The Coca-Cola Company's share lead over its chief competitor, in its flagship market, with its flagship product, had been slowly slipping for 15 consecutive years. The cola category in general was lethargic. Consumer preference for Coca-Cola was dipping, as was consumer awareness. That changed, of course, in the summer of 1985 as the consumer outcry over "new Coke" was replaced by consumer affection for Coca-Cola classic. The fabled secret formula for Coca-Cola was changed, adopting a formula preferred in taste tests of nearly 200,000 consumers. What these tests didn't show, of course, was the bond consumers felt with their Coca-Cola — something they didn't want anyone, including The Coca-Cola Company, tampering with. The events of the spring and summer of '85 — pundits blasting the "marketing blunder of the century," consumers hoarding the "old" Coke, calls of protests by the thousands — changed forever The Coca-Cola Company's thinking. At the 10-year anniversary celebration, Mr. Goizueta characterized the "new Coke" decision as a prime example of "taking intelligent risks." He urged all employees to take intelligent risks in their jobs, saying it was critical to the company's success. Many of the employees there that day had worked for the company in 1985 and remembered the thousands of calls and consumer complaints. Calls flooded in not just to the 800-GET-COKE phone line, but to Coca-Cola offices across the United States. By June 1985, The Coca-Cola Company was getting 1,500 calls a day on its consumer hotline, compared with 400 a day before the taste change. People seemed to hold any Coca-Cola employee — from security officers at our headquarters building to their neighbors who worked for Coke — personally responsible for the change.

Mr. Goizueta received a letter addressed to "Chief Dodo, The Coca-Cola Company." (He often said he was more upset that it was actually delivered to him!)

Another person wrote to him asking for his autograph — because, in years to come, the signature of "one of the dumbest executives in American business history" would be worth a fortune.

When the taste change was announced, some consumers panicked, filling their basements with cases of Coke®. A man in San Antonio, Texas, drove to a local bottler and bought $1,000 worth of Coca-Cola. Some people got depressed over the loss of their favorite soft drink. Suddenly everyone was talking about Coca-Cola, realizing what an important role it played in his or her life. Protest groups — such as the Society for the Preservation of the Real Thing and Old Cola Drinkers of America (which claimed to have recruited 100,000 in a drive to bring back "old" Coke) — popped up around the country. Songs were written to honor the old taste. Protesters at a Coca-Cola event in downtown Atlanta in May carried signs with "We want the real thing" and "Our children will never know refreshment." The Return of a Classic When the announcement of the return of "old" Coca-Cola was made in July 1985, those hoarding as many as 900 bottles in their basements could stop their self-imposed rationing and begin to drink the product as they always had — as often as they'd like. That July day, the story that the "old" Coca-Cola was returning to store shelves as Coca-Cola classic led two network newscasts and made the front page of virtually every major newspaper. Consumers applauded the decision. In just two days after the announcement of Coca-Cola classic, The Coca-Cola Company received 31,600 telephone calls on the hotline. Coca-Cola was obviously more than just a soft drink. Coca-Cola classic was sold alongside Coca-Cola ("new Coke"), and the two brands had distinct advertising campaigns, with the youthful, leading-edge "Catch the Wave" campaign for the new taste of Coke and the emotional "Red, White and You" for Coca-Cola classic. Later, the name of the new taste of Coca-Cola was changed to Coke II; the product is no longer available in the United States. The events of 1985 changed forever the dynamics of the soft-drink industry and the success of The Coca-Cola Company, as the Coca-Cola brand soared to new heights and consumers continued to remember the love they have for Coca-Cola

The firestorm ended on July 11, 1985, with the return of the original formula, now called Coca-Cola classic.

Fascinating, but what does it have to do with Jesus and his hometown of Nazareth?

Everything! Jesus knew a little something about human nature.

Jesus knew then and he knows now, that people don’t like change.

You see the people of Nazareth were comfortable with the Jesus they knew.

They had watched him grown up playing with his brothers James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon and his sisters. Many of them had grown up with Jesus playing in the streets together.

Put yourself in their shoes. You grew up playing hide and seek, cops and robbers, marbles, and board games on rainy days with Jesus. You became teenagers together and did all the things that teenagers do.

Or imagine that you watched all this as you watched your own kids grow up next door to Jesus.

I’m just speculating here. We don’t really know what Jesus childhood was like. The Bible doesn’t tell if he was popular, if he played games with other kids, if he had a lot of friends or no friends at all.

However, we do know that there was a certain familiarity with the Jesus they thought they knew that caused them to not trust the change they were seeing.

Has Jesus become familiar to you?

Have you become comfortable with you own classic version of Jesus.

It happens. Even to the best of us.

Divine Encounter

A few weeks ago,

At the park, Bayfront Park.

I had a Divine Encounter with a man we will call Mark.

Story of Martin (CALL HIM MARK)

The encounter -

to the park to study.

Man sleeping on park table.

Probably drunk. Locked out by wife etc. Homeless.

Decided not to bother him.

Hopefully he wouldn’t bother me.

He called for help.

I call 911.

Small talk.

He had a story - we all do.

he shared it with me and it was heartbreaking.

Paramedics scooped him up and carried him away.

I had no idea that this interaction was anything more than ordinary.

I meet people all the time. They share their stories and I share mine.

Other than having to call 911, this was just an ordinary day in the park.

Just and ordinary day at the park. Meeting new people sharing my faith.

I was an ordinary day for me, but it was far from ordinary for Mark.

I have talked to Mark a couple of times since then. He is my new brother in Christ.

Mark told me, that for him this was a Divine encounter.

For Mark it was orchestrated by God.

For Mark it would be one of the most significant days of his life.

If he hadn’t told me so, I would have missed it.

The miraculous was happening before my very eyes.

God, in his great love, granted me the opportunity to participate in the miraculous work of the Risen Savior Jesus Christ,

And I almost missed it.

It almost came and went without me even knowing.

Are you missing out on the miraculous?

Has your Jesus become tame and predictable.

Has your Jesus become manageable.

In other words, He is there when you need him, and not there, when you don’t.

Do you trust Jesus because he is the Risen Saviour of the world.

Or, do you trust him because he is familiar.

Are you content, or shall we say complacent with a Jesus who has assured you of eternal life, makes you feel better when you are sad, and doesn’t hassle you when you’ve got better things to do?

If you are, then you are missing out?

You may see your life as ordinary, But Jesus has something way more miraculous in mind for you.

This little town of Nazareth had the most significant individual to ever walk the face of the earth living in their town, and they missed it, because because they were comfortable with the ordinary. They liked the old Jesus better.

Do not make for yourself and ordinary Jesus.

Do not allow yourself to be content with your version of a Classic Jesus.

He is by no means ordinary.

He is by no means a classic.

He is the great Saviour of the world.

He is the great physician.

He is still in the healing business, to that both my new friend Mark and I can testify.

Jesus sacrificed more than all the humans of the world and the angels of heaven combined, so that you could have a miraculous relationship with God. So that you could experience healing for your life and participate in the miraculous healing of others.

Jesus sacrificed himself so that we could live in the presence of the Almighty and experience his miraculous healing power, now and for all eternity.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

AMEN.