The Threads

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Oops: No one wants to be just another “one”. We want to matter. pink floyd, Threads thing.

I was in the car the other day listening to Charlie FM as is my habit and the song, Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd came on the radio. Appropriate September song. “We don’t need no education...”

The refrain comes back several times to the line: “All in all you’re just another brick in the wall”

I think I get what Mr. Floyd is trying to say in this song…but I happened to drive by the community building next door a little later and the thought occurred to me…how important is one brick in that wall?

If a brick was missing…would it be noticed? I think so. If one brick in our fellowship hall disappeared, we would be calling the deacons to find a solution.

Maybe “just another” is more important than it seems.

The sermon series is called threads…and that’s us. Just another…thread

Last week we highlighted the importance of knowing and trusting the providence of the one who weaves the threads together.

But what is the importance of one thread?

Ugh: We sometimes feel like an inconsequential piece and we don’t like it.

A question each of us desperately needs to know the answer to: Do I matter? To God? To others? Am I doing something that matters?

We don’t want to be just another brick, just another thread. I have many threads in this shirt, I don’t notice any of them. But I would notice if one wasn’t where it should be.

The problem with Pink Floyd’s prog rock classic is a matter of perspective. Just another brick can seem meaningless, while being absolutely essential to the purpose of the wall…not to mention the bricks that depend on that one for support.

One thread in a garment may seem unimportant…and yet each one is essential for that shirt to fulfill the purpose is was created for.

Maybe the real question isn’t am I “just another”, but am I a part of a whole that matters?

That’s why we started with the providence of the weaver. If we don’t trust the one weaving the threads…if we don’t see the heart of the one building the wall, how can we embrace our place in that big picture. But if we do?

Aha: We may be just another thread in God’s hand…but how vital is one thread?

Then we will see that One Thread Matters. It matters to the weaver. It matters to the purposes of the weaver. It matters to the threads around it.

“Just another” absolutely isn’t. x2

This morning, let’s see the importance of one thread, and be thinking about this: If my thread matters…really matters this way, what would change in my life?

Pray

Show us the importance of our fragile thread.

Whee: That thread is special to God

Each Thread

Hand Crafted

One of the reasons I love my backyard, even unfinished, is that I can see my hand in every part completed.

That little bit of imagination, gallons of sweat, the minor injury…My hands, along with some helping ones got it this far.

As a part of a project I’ll be inviting you to join me in over the next couple weeks (that’s called a teaser in the trade), I made this visual for the sermon series.

Transparency, when it was done I felt as proud as a preschooler with a finger painting.

A common expression in advertising to proclaim the value of something, whether it’s a hat, or a beer, or new cabinets for your home is that it was, “Hand Crafted”

And of course the skill and reputation of the crafter makes all the difference in the value.

Do you know the Bible has much to say about God’s investment in crafting you? Let’s let the word speak for itself.

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.”

Of all the things in the Bible that are clearly spelled out, this may be one of the hardest simple things for me to wrap my head around.

Your little thread, this fragile body, the heart that feels, and the mind that things all was formed by God in HIS IMAGE. To be HIS REPRESENTATION on this planet he created.

I heard Tim Mackie from the Bible project explain once that the reason God doesn’t allow his people to create idols, an image that represents God…is that he already did.

But OH, slide forward to Genesis 2 and get another glimpse of the process:

Genesis 2:7 “Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.”

Up to this point in creation it is all the spoken word of God that has done the work, but in this second view of mankind’s creation we get the image of the hands of God in the clay and dust shaping and molding, and then breathing his life into this being he created.

No wonder Psalm 139:14 declares: “I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.”

Actual threads can be spun by a machine,

Bricks can be formed by a factory

But a living human being is hand crafted by THE orginial and greatest artist, God himself.

This is true of you. I’ll remind you of my question: If my thread really matters, what would change?

One more verse before we move on to the next point… In Isaiah 43 and 44 a variation of the phrase “the one who formed you” occurs 6 times. 6. God’s making a point. Here is a couple of those that get the point across

Isaiah 43:7 “everyone who bears my name and is created for my glory. I have formed them; indeed, I have made them.””

Isaiah 44:2 “This is the word of the Lord your Maker, the one who formed you from the womb: He will help you. Do not fear, Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.”

I can’t help myself…one more

Isaiah 44:21 “Remember these things, Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; Israel, you will never be forgotten by me.”

Hand crafted…and these verses take us to our next point

Loved Beyond belief

Let me throw that last one back up

Isaiah 44:21 “Remember these things, Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; Israel, you will never be forgotten by me.”

Isaiah was written for a people about to go into exile because of their rejection of the God who redeemed them. This was a crisis…of their own making. and yet God says to them, I MADE YOU AND YOU will never be forgotten by ME.

A few verses later he says I am your redeemer and the one who formed you.

He never quits on you. Even when you quit on him.

WHY?

Why does the parent of a prodigal child wait with their face to the glass of the window in prayer for their son or daughter…just looking to see if they are the road home?

Why does a man hunt for days or work through the night to make just the right gift to put a smile on a woman’s face?

Love. And God loves you beyond belief. I pray this verse never feels rote or worn:

John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

God loved the world, the people he crafted so much he gave his son, he gave himself, so we might have the opportunity to choose life.

I hope you read Romans 9 and the first part of 10 I suggested, A great case study in last week’s topic of God’s providence. But Romans 9 comes after Romans 8. God’s providence is built on something important.

Forgive the length of this passage…every word is worth the listen.

Paul establishes in Romans 8 that:

there is no condemnation for those in Christ

The God fulfilled the law we couldn’t

Our minds have changed

Life has been given

We don’t have to live the way we did

We have been adopted as God’s children crying “Daddy”

That our worst suffering is not worth comparing with the glory that is coming

That all creation is waiting expectantly for what God is going to do in us

That we can hope, that the Spirit prays for us even when we don’t know how to pray, that (as mentioned last week) all things work together for good for those who love God and are called and then Paul stops and you can almost hear him sing

Romans 8:31-39 “What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?

Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.

Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

You…my little thread, you brick in the wall…you are loved by God like you wouldn’t believe.

I ask again, If that is true, what would change in your life?

Two more thoughts

Placed With Precision

Because God made and loves you, in his providence, he has placed you. One short verse for this one:

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.”

There are a few threads that work together to keep these sleeves on. All that keeps this humble service from turning into the gun show. They were placed by the shirts designer with that purpose. To keep Shaun’s pasty white shoulders from being put on display.

Let me lead with our question. If this is true, what would change? Let me give some thoughts.

Frustrated in your family? What if God placed you there because you have the ability to serve his purposes in that family in a way no one else can?

Does your job ever feel meaningless? What if you have that job in this season because your thread is desperately needed by even one person that needs the good work God prepared for ahead of time for you.

Maybe the life group you are in isn’t just so you can study and learn together, but so you can serve one another and serve others together and God is just waiting for you to look to him to see what he’s prepared.

The brick layer doesn’t put a brick in a place it isn’t vital. The weaver doesn’t place threads willy nilly. You are where you are because God, the great weaver

Knows the needs that will exist

Knows your capacity to serve

Placed you with precision right where you needed to be to serve God’s loving purposes in the lives of others.

Does one thread matter?

To the threads woven around it you better believe it.

We have to begin from a trust in God’s providence, his ability, right, and capacity to see to it that things come together.

If we trust that, then we can believe AND act as if the place where we are is exactly where we were meant to be and we can choose to look for those things God has for us to do in this place and season that otherwise may make us wonder why?

Last thought, very related is this:

Essential To The Fabric

At the end of that exile Isaiah was writing about, there were Jews struggling throughout what was now the Persian empire.

The king of Persia was…a poor husband, his wife got mad, he kicked her out to save face. Then held a beauty pageant to replace her.

In the end a Jewish girl named Esther won the first ever season of the bachelor.

Nearly at the same time an official rose up who had a vendetta against the Jews and manipulated the king into signing an order to wipe them out…all of them.

Esther struggled with what to do, her uncle and adopted father gave her this advice:

Esther 4:14 “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”

In other words, God won’t quit on his plan. but you might be his plan.

She was there for that. Big and dramatic, high impact.

But do you realize how essential you are in the fabric where you are woven? Simple and local, not of global or national impact…but…That’s really where the impact is made. Not on the big stage, but in the small spaces.

It’s in the way God formed the church:

1 Corinthians 12:24b-26 “Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

God not only gave us each a role…but made us indispensible to one another.

In this little piece of art, this visual depends on every thin line. Every nail has purpose in the shape and function.

your thread, from it’s beginning to end is woven and stitched through so many others and becomes a part of shaping their thread. Every place where these threads contact there is a subtle shift in the others as they go around and below, and through one another.

In Japan they are describing a phenomena they are calling: HiKiKoMoRi

Over a half a million adult men who have no specific illness, physical or mental but who choose to stay shut in as recluses in their parent’s homes.

Brant Hansen, in his book the Men we Need wonders at the loss of impact in the world. Because they remain isolated, what does the world lose?

Men who could serve, who could love, who could raise families, who could care for the vulnerable...

They seem to think their thread isn’t attached to any other…but in reality their absense leaves a hole that increases the vulnerability of the ones that remain.

They see their choice as affecting only them, but the world suffers for their loss.

And if we think this is a Japenese problem alone, we’re kidding ourselves.

our devices, entertainment, over work, fear, isolation, selfishness, protecting the safety of our own thread by locking it away, using social media as a buffer to real relationships…This is a human problem.

Yeah: Geoff Moore quote - a hand…scarlet thread. Your thread matters. Let’s start with this: Your thread matters to the threads you are closest to. Invest in one of those most important this week.

If you listened to much Christian music in the 90’s, you might remember Geoff Moore and the Distance. One of his songs was at least a part of the inspiration for this series. I think you’ll see why as I read some of the lyrics. (worship team up)

There is a thread Running between The first and last Breath that we breathe And in this strand Of flesh and bone Resides the hopes And dreams we call our own There's a hand That sews the threads together Around one strand Of saving scarlet thread

Come as you are Weary, worn and tattered Come and take Your place among the threads There is a thread Sometimes unseen Moving through life's tapestry And when this strand Enters a soul It's woven to the One that makes Us whole

Last week we established that there is a hand that sows the threads together. Your thread matters.

I hope you heard first and foremost today that it matters to God. It matters so much that he wove that one saving scarlet thread into the pattern to make us whole.

He sent Jesus to die for our sin, he raised him from the dead to defeat death once and for all, and he invites you to come. Today if you haven’t ever made that decision to surrender to Jesus, will you come forward and pray with a member of our prayer team or find me in the back?

but I also hope you heard that your thread matters to the ones around you. I want to send you home with one task. And I want you to email call or text me and tell me about how you chose to step into it.

Pick one other thread in your life…maybe as we went through God illuminated a person who he put in your fabric that you have not impacted for good. Maybe not bad…maybe just absent, maybe just not what you know God put you there for.

Could be family. Could be someone in your home.

Could be a classmate or coworker

Could be that guys who stands on the same corner every morning and you have felt God pulling your thread to go sit with him and you just keep saying no.

Start with one. One other thread in need of becoming a part of the pattern. One other thread alone. One other thread loved by God, placed with precision before you, who is also essential to the fabric.

Let’s pray.