02/07/2024
Less Transactional and More Transformational
Sunday, we talked about how easy it is to fall into a ‘transactional mindset’ when it comes to relating to other people. Jesus wasn’t a fan of looking at others in terms of what they could do for him. In fact, he was much more likely to wonder what he might offer to them.
The question we need to ask ourselves this week is this:
“Who are the people with whom I choose not to come into contact with, because they really don’t have anything to offer me? How might I cool Jesus’ anger by responding to them differently than I have up to this point? How do I move from making Jesus mad to making him glad?
I came across a quote by Spencer Kimball, who said—
“Love people, not things;
use things, not people.”
When you relate to people based on what they can do for you—when you try to determine what value they will bring into your life—you might as well be buying a new laptop at Best Buy, a new gadget on Amazon, or a new car at the dealer. You’re asking, what it costs me vs. what I get in return. That is the wrong thing to do with other human souls. Another author wrote, “Sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
People aren’t things to be used,
They aren’t toys to play with,
They aren’t tools to be used to fix something broken in our lives,
They aren’t trophies to collect,
Nor are they competitors to compete against—
We are children of God. Each and every one of us are eternal souls put here according to God’s purpose and plan. To treat anyone as anything less than this is to make Jesus mad, and to demean the image of God in which they were created.
Archived Posts
Not Just for Parents
Our current sermon series is about How To Talk Parent, but it doesn’t require any of us to be parents to appreciate the bits of wisdom OUR parents shared with us growing up.
If Not Higher
Here’s a story I wanted to use when talking about ‘what you do when no one is looking’ yesterday. It’s a wonderful illustration of what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6:1-6—do what you do because of who you want to be, not so that others will take notice and praise you.
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”
One of the Longest Benedictions I Ran Out of Time to Share
Maybe you know the story of how Joseph and Mary accidentally left Jesus at the gas station on their way home from Jerusalem. Well, not the gas station bathroom in Jesus’ case. Joe and Mary are far down the road before they realize Jesus isn’t with them...
So many quips and quotes...
So little time to preach
I wonder what Mary and Martha’s phones might look like:
* Martha = the open browser with 27 tabs
* Mary = the single window that matters
* Psalm 46 = God saying, “Close the tabs.”