Born to Worship

I need to spend some time this morning thinking about Thanksgiving and planning for our services. I want to celebrate Thanksgiving within the context of the ‘overflow.’ Here is the context of the command in the scriptures to ‘overflow with thanksgiving.’

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
(Col. 2:6-15, NIV)

This passage comes after a whole chapter proclaiming the gospel of Christ, the deity of Christ, and the mystery of Christ. One thing is certainly clear in this letter to the Colossians and to us – Paul is unashamedly and wholeheartedly Christ-centered. It’s all about Christ and the gospel – any other message he warns is ‘hollow and deceptive philosophy.’ Our thanksgiving must begin with Christ and remain centered on him. We come to Thanksgiving with the command to be people ‘overflowing with thankfulness.’ The context is Christ – who he is and what he has done. He is the Lord – the fullness of Deity. What has he done? He has given us ‘fullness in Christ.’ Have we really laid hold of this fullness that we have been given? Are we laying hold of it? People who are full have plenty to be thankful for, in fact, you might say we should naturally spill over with thanksgiving . What does that fullness look like? When we lay hold of this fullness there is no greater response than thanks. How do we maximize the thanksgiving? We share the source of our fullness, Jesus Christ, with others.

“All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.” (2 Cor. 4:15, NIV)

Lord, may thanksgiving overflow to your glory through my life in two ways. First through my lips that offer praise to you as an act of worship and through lips that confess your name and tell others about Christ and the fullness that is found in him. Amen.

I’m going to take some time this morning to meditate on the concept of hope. I was talking about meditation with a friend this morning, discussing yoga and Eastern meditation techniques. I am admittedly mostly ignorant of these practices, but I really consider my time on Wednesday mornings as meditation time. Here’s how I view meditation. I’m more interested in filling my mind with truth rather than emptying it. I’m a fan of solitude and silence and I do see its value, but for me I find much more direction in life, intimacy with God, and peace from saturating my soul with truth. Truth is found and communicated by many people through various means like books, movies, songs, and word of mouth. Then again so is falsehood. So my greatest source of truth is the Bible and the subject of the Bible is Jesus and so that is where I look first and it is the measure by which I compare all other attempts at communicating truth. That said, here are some thoughts and observations about hope. I owe some thanks to my Worship Planning Team for helping me process and uncover the topic last night at our meeting. The first thing I notice is that hope is essential in life if we are to move forward, progressing in maturity and living well. Life naturally deals us disappointments and this causes a constant struggle to maintain hope. Despair and depression, are both the enemy of hope and a result of an increasing inward focus, a self-pity that consumes us with ourselves. The Proverbs say, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Prov. 13:12, NIV) A lot of people are walking around with sick hearts. It is certainly easier to relate to hopelessness than hope. Why is it that we are more readily able to relate to the negative feelings in life than the positive? Perhaps it’s the pain and the wounds that constantly remind us of the pain. These things that cause us to loose hope are very real and very terrible – broken relationships, personal failure, debilitating loss, chronic illness, and victimization, to name a few. We’ve all experienced and will continue to experience these things to some level. This were never meant to be. And yet there is a cure for the sick heart – an answer that can bring a hope that transcends everything else. That is the message of the Bible. The subject is Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. He is the answer, but he is not an immediate cure-all to end suffering. Turning to him secures our  redemption and then begins the hope building process. It is a messy process, a wrestle between the flesh and the Spirit. But it is a journey worth taking – a journey where hope propels us forward. It is a journey where we discover that it is less about our work and more about Christ’s work in us. So let’s take a brief look. The Old Testament is a story of God’s plan of redemption for a world that went wrong because of sin. He chose the nation of Israel and blessed them to be a blessing to all nations. Ultimately that blessing would be revealed in the form of salvation through the Jewish Messiah. But as we follow this ‘blessed’ nation of Israel, what we see is incredible suffering because of sin and wrong choices. Dysfunctional people and screwed up families abound, but one constant remains – the loyal love and sovereignty of God who is faithful to keep his promises. There are so many Scripture passages that talk about hope. Job, one of the greatest sufferers, and not as a result of wrongdoing, talks about hope many times as he wrestles with God over his misfortune. He never looses hope, and as a result is redeemed out of the suffering. He is the one that said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27, NIV) King David and the other Psalm writers talked about hope all of the time. I spent some time meditating on Psalm 33 when I was going through a time of great trial. I found hope there. (See Meditation on Psalm 33.) But the most powerful statement of hope came from the prophet Jeremiah in the midst of a book called Lamentations. He was pouring out his sorrows over the fall of the nation of Israel to the ruthless army of Babylon and the destruction and desecration of the temple. This was the lowest point in Israel’s history in Biblical times. In the midst of Jeremiah’s lament he says these powerful words of hope. “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. “ (Lam. 3:21-27, NIV) What we see here is a union of three closely related attributes of God’s character. Faith, hope and love. This takes me to Paul’s statement that highlights these three as well. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1Cor. 13:13, NIV) So these three are the essential elements of the spiritual life. It is interesting that hope is not the greatest – love is. Hope is a result of God’s loyal love which is a display of his faithfulness. And so I want to end my meditation looking at faith and love as the messengers of hope. This is the pattern that we observe in the New Testament as the apostles uncover and teach about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I looked through all of the verses in the New Testament that mention hope. One of the things I noticed right away is that hope is always discussed in the context of the gospel of Christ. Christ didn’t talk about hope much, but instead revealed his power, declared his love and invited people to trust and follow him (faith). As the apostles exercised and taught on faith and love, they became overwhelmed with the hope that resulted. Another observation is that hope is nearly always spoken of in the reality of suffering. It frequently refers to the hope of eternal life (in response to death) and to Christ’s return (in response to all that is wrong finally being made right). I want to briefly look at my favorite passage on hope and demonstrate these things.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:1-8, NIV)

This passage is the perfect demonstration of the unity of faith, hope and love. It begins and ends with the gospel of Christ and talks about suffering in the middle. There are a couple of things that I notice about hope here. First of all is that hope causes us to rejoice, not only in the glory of God, but ironically, in our sufferings. Second that hope is produced in us as a result of suffering. It isn’t something we need to obtain to make it through suffering. In some profound way, it is a byproduct of suffering. The context here though is important. In the midst of suffering we are not looking at ourselves, instead we are looking to Christ. It is faith in Jesus and confidence in the gospel that inspires and produces hope. The gospel is simply the ‘good news,’ the story of Christ. Either we believe and follow Christ or we don’t. There are immediate and eternal implications of either choice. As for me, I believe and I follow, and thankfully, I have hope in this world, and for eternity. It is interesting in our American form of Christianity that we are consumed with trying to minimize suffering and maximize safety and comfort. The call of Jesus is a call to suffer for the sake of the gospel – to join in Christ’s sufferings so to speak. It is a call to costly obedience, risky trust, humble service and sacrificial giving of ourselves and our resources. It is not a call to the American ideal of prosperity, but instead a call away from it to something much more fulfilling. But we rarely hear that call taught from the pulpits in our churches. Because we are consumed with alleviating suffering or avoiding it all together, we miss the fullness of the hope we were intended to experience in Christ and in the gospel. And we really don’t avoid the suffering anyway. We who follow Christ often try to hide our suffering, we’re ashamed of it probably because we’re ashamed of its source. We ought to instead ‘rejoice’ in it and as a result find hope. This is easy to say and hard to live, but I think it is the Holy Spirit that makes the hard stuff of the life of faith in Christ possible. It is his work in and through us that produces fruit. I end with a challenge to embrace suffering as a means to a deeper trust, a deeper faith, and a deeper hope. We certainly don’t need to go looking for suffering, it will find us. We don’t need to act like we enjoy it either. But we shouldn’t run away from it or be dishonest about it. We must fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and we must seek to understand and build our confidence in the gospel that saves us and gives us this hope. Lastly, we need to help one another find hope, not shallow hope that everything will get ‘fixed,’ but a deep hope that is produced by suffering and our choice to turn to Christ. I love the picture in the Scripture below about overflowing with hope. This hope will be enough not only for us, but will spill over to others. Lord, may I possess this hope. May we who follow you be identified by this hope that we have and give to others.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 15:13, NIV)

[These goals were shared in a talk I gave at a Worship Ministries Workshop on 9/15/07.] I’d like to close our time today by sharing my vision for worship ministries at Trinity Church. But first of all I want to take you on a journey with me. Up highway 395 . . . *Into the backcountry with God *Sing ‘Beautiful One’ *Worship ministry begins with worshipers who are growing in love with Jesus – who are investing their time, talents and energy to go into the backcountry with God. Have you gone there lately? Do you go there often? How can you use your artistic or technical area to go deeper with
God? Now for my vision for worship ministries.

There are three goals and they are as follows.
1. God is glorified – our worship leadership is leading from hearts that are totally devoted to Christ and continually being transformed into his image, for his glory alone.
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2Cor. 3:18, NIV) I’ve heard this prayer, “Lord we want to see your glory,” prayed often in a worship service context. What if we prayed instead, “Lord, transform us in your likeness with ever-increasing glory?” I think God would be pleased to reveal his glory in us this way. And as it happens in the worship leadership, so will it go with the congregation. Christ and life in his church is central or quickly moving to the center from the circumference. As we proclaim the truth of the Gospel, as we declare our love for our Lord, we are gaining greater confidence in the gospel, and a deeper hunger and thirst for God and the Holy Spirit’s work in and through our lives. We lead by modeling a response of worship that includes repentance, faith and obedience – perhaps these are the best indicators that transformation is in the works. The Lord is glorified as we are transformed into his likeness. Is there anything getting in the way of the Spirit’s transforming work in your life? Do you see evidence of it? Do you pray for this personally?

2. God’s church is edified – our worship teams and team members are truly serving the body, not themselves. Our goal is to put the spotlight on Him and not ourselves. And yet we do so with an excellence that he is worthy of – nothing but our best, and our best best be getting better. We humbly use our talents to minister to our church family. Let’s think about humility for a few moments. *Tell story of how someone observing one of our worship teams recently commented that for the first time he understood how playing a solo was worshiping God. Should an artist paint less than his very best because it’s going to be used in church for a worship service? -Humility is what balances out excellence to make the right combination to offer worship that is pleasing to God and accessible to the people we lead. It is especially essential for those who serve up front. Humility can be seen in the way a team interacts with one another, in the shared joy of serving, in the expressions of joy in celebration and reverence toward the Lord. Humble people boast in their weaknesses along with the Apostle Paul who said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. “(2Cor. 12:9-10, NIV) Humility also says, “How can I serve you better?” We serve one another and our church with our artistic or technical talents. We’re always looking for opportunities to build each other up – in this way we love one another. Do you have a motto of serving or being served? Is it about you getting to do it your way, or are you willing to change your way or stretch your talent to benefit the team?

3. The lost are being saved – those who do not know Christ are finding salvation as they observe the worshipping church, and are invited to participate. God’s Spirit is undeniably present and overflowing through the lives of his people inside and outside the church worship service. They are discovering the joy and responsibility as his ambassadors to the lost, inviting them to be reconciled to God. We are fooling ourselves if we think that we are serving the Lord in a pleasing way if our heart doesn’t have compassion for the lost. This has been one of my greatest struggles and sins in life. It is so easy to consume ourselves completely in the church and in serving the church and forget that the church is about mission and that mission is Jesus’ mission. And Jesus declared his mission like this, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”(Luke 19:10, NIV) I want to encourage each of us to use our artistic or technical area to be ambassadors for Jesus. With it we can declare the gospel of Christ, and we can make friends with those who have never discovered the Creator of their talent. Does your heart break for the lost? Do you know people who are artists or technicians like yourself who don’t know Christ? Do you use your artistic or technical talent to creatively tell the gospel of Christ? In conclusion, God is most glorified when his people are being edified and the lost are being saved. This is his purpose for the church, and these are truly marks of a healthy and thriving church. These should be the marks of each of our ministries at Trinity Church. It’s a tall order, and it begins with prayer for God to do supernaturally through us what we could never do ourselves. And that’s how I want to end our time – praying together that we would be worship leaders who give glory to God, serve and build up our church, and reach the lost with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well, I’ve been out of commission for 8 days now. It was last week Monday that I came down with a fever. Two visits to urgent care and one to my doctor, now on a different antibiotic and I’m finally on the mend from a brutal sinus infection. A lot of life happened while I was flat on my back. I had one of the biggest worship ministries weekends and managed to participate (perhaps aggravating my condition) in an incredible concert on Friday night and a workshop on Saturday. There were many highlights to the weekend, but one of my favorites was that we partnered with other churches. On Friday night, John & Tonya and their band, Mustard Seed, knocked a home run with an incredible concert. Then their guest band from Ecclesia just took it over the top with a gospel celebration. It was beautiful music, but more beautiful than that, was to see our congregation and stage mixed with color as we joined with these brothers and sisters. The joy was seeing this friendship between John and Cliff displayed. This truly is an answer to prayer – I’m so eager to get to know Cliff and develop a friendship with him. There was a great moment early on in the concert. As J&T sang their second song, Shelter, I welled up with emotion. I couldn’t sing because I was so sick, but I could cry, and cry I did. Many things were touching my heart at that moment. First was how wonderful it sounded – crisp, loud, and full of presence. Second was how wonderful Mustard Seed sounded and how clearly they were communicating. I was so proud of J&T and so proud that my church was producing such a wonderful expression of worship. Third, I was so excited to be doing this with Ecclesia – apart from my health, it was just a perfect night. On Saturday, Attila and his Sanctuary Worship Band led us in worship at our opening session. They brought a huge sound to our room and it was beautiful. They took it over-the-top and did a great job leading worship for our ‘youthful’ gathering that morning. My health was declining throughout the morning, but I was so proud of my people as they taught their seminars. It was wonderful to see our worship team ‘spilling over’ into the lives ofour youth, Light & Power, THELP and Hispanic Ministry teams. We will certainly do this again next year – perhaps inviting Cliff and Ecclesia to lead us. I was very sad to miss church on Sunday as my good friend and brother Cliff Hale shared his ‘spilling over’ faith story. I was eager to get a copy of the DVD and watched it and wept through it. It was beautiful! I have been so inspired by Cliff and Brenda as I have moved into the ‘spilling over’ ministry that God has prepared for me. They have modeled a bold faith and a willingness to get messy and risk for God. And the payoff was in the men that stood beside them on stage. Jaime and Anthony’s stories were so touching. People like them are worth all the risk in the world. That’s how God felt when he sent his one and only Son. And we’re called to follow him in such extravagant and risky expressions of love. Now for some reflections on ‘Investing Wiser.’ I think it all begins with the question, “Who owns it?” Most of us clearly think we own the things we have. We possess the money we earn and are free to spend it on ourselves and on our desires. I think one of the biggest failures/sins of the American evangelical Christian is how we use our money. If God owns our money, we would spend more time agonizing over how we spend it. We would be less concerned with spending it on our comfort, status and pleasure and would be more concerned about using it to make an eternal difference in God’s kingdom. But stewardship is about much more than money. It’s about everything that God has given us – our families, our talents, our jobs, our time – everything. The one who is following God is willing to leave everything at his feet for his use for his glory. My day begins with a short prayer recognizing my potential to be used for God’s glory and asking the God would indeed use me and that the Holy Spirit would pour out fruit through me in every interaction of the day. Then I make sure I don’t miss the opportunities that come my way.

Just a few reflections on ‘Reaching Wider,’ the topic of our spilling over sermon last
Sunday. First of all, Mark Brown did a fantastic job of uncovering the Scripture where Paul declares that we are called to be Christ’s ambassadors. (2 Corinthians 5:16 -21) I loved Mark’s creativity, his sincerity, and his obvious preparation as his thoughts flowed in a logical and compelling manner. But what I loved most is that he spoke on evangelism in a way that placed tremendous value on the lost person. Of course this is what Jesus did. He used the word ‘lost’ in an endearing way – a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son – all of them worth whatever cost and effort to seek and to find. Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10, NIV) Mark also placed the emphasis on God’s work not my work – and that is the key that just recently opened the door to this calling on my life. If I had to measure my effectiveness as Christ’s ambassador in my 31 years as a Christ follower, I would rate myself very low. Having grown up in the church my whole life you’d think I’d get it, but I wasn’t really trained to think this way. The emphasis from my parents at home and my leaders and teachers at church seemed to be more on being holy, set apart, dfferent. Keeping myself unstained by the world. All of these things are biblical, but somehow the Great Commission stayed in the background. I heard about it often, but the focus was heavily on foreign missions and going away to do evangelism rather than doing it right where God had placed me. I heard a preacher once that stated that churches who focused all their evangelism efforts oversees and weren’t doing anything in their own communities were ‘damn cowards.’ It was a strong statement that woke me up. I was convicted of my own sin when it comes to shying away from speaking God’s message. Fear. But underlying that fear is perhaps an even more foundational problem – the lack of a sincere love for the lost. My selfish nature takes the blessing of salvation, life in Christ and his family, and keeps it to myself. The Christian life is about my comfort.
I’ve bought into that lie – it’s very American, and it pervades our church and my life. If I really loved the lost, I would do whatever it takes to bring Christ to them and them to Christ. Love requires sacrifice – it will require great discomfort. Certainly it requires us to face our fears and trust God. And so about 2 years ago I discovered the path toward effectively being Christ’s ambassador. I began to pray not just for people who were lost, but more so for myself. “Lord, give me a love for the lost. Break my heart in the same way that yours is broken when people are separated from you.” I’ve got a long way to go, but I can see God answering that prayer, softening my heart and even breaking it for those who are lost. A goal and prayer for 2007 is that I would have the privilege of leading one person to the Lord. I’ve never been one-on-one with a friend the moment that they have given their life over to Christ – ‘prayed the prayer’ so to speak. Perhaps I’ve been influential in the process that Christ has used to draw someone to himself. I’m okay with that position because it clearly brings the glory to God and his work, not my clever ability to persuade someone to believe. But I want to speak clearly as Christ’s ambassador. I don’t want to make excuses for my fear of speaking the message of Christ. When the opportunity comes and I get the opportunity to join in on God’s work, I want to be counted faithful to carry the message of the cross and encourage someone to give their life to Christ. In this way, I was very encouraged with Mark’s first point of his sermon – God is always at work, reconciling the world to himself. My job is to join him. The work is his work, not mine. The pressure is off. Thus I discover that God is spilling over through me as I fulfill my role as Christ’s ambassador. It is the work of the Holy Spirit and it is the first fruit of the Spirit that begins the process.

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2Cor. 5:14-15, NIV)

I can’t wait to learn how to ‘speak clearly’ next week. Until next week . . .

Going Deeper – that was the title of our sermon and the focus of our service on Sunday. This ‘Spilling Over’ series has been very exciting and on Sunday I was feasting on a meal of truth from Galatians 5:16-26. Our pastor, Gary Inrig, brought us some very clear points from this Scripture on the fruit that results from a Spirit-filled life. There were so many nuggets of truth that we could spend the next year unpacking it. So often there is so much information delivered during the 40-minute sermon – all of it incredibly insightful and all of it worth devoting much more time reflecting and digesting. I found myself wishing to, well, go deeper on each point. I’m not a shining specimen of intellectual brilliance, but my somewhat educated mind just can’t take it all in. By the end of the sermon I felt a bit like I was riding on a motorcycle going 100 mph down a beautiful highway. Afterwards I revel in the fun of the ride, the adventure and the brief moments I could glance up at the beauty, the thrill of high speed and the incredible machine that took me on this journey. Yet, I wish I could have slowed down and even stopped at many points along the way. What’s the rush anyway? This is not meant to slight Gary’s teaching – instead it is a confession of my inability to digest quickly. It’s a weakness and at the same time a strength of my personality. It takes me a long time to process things. That’s why I’m a better writer than public speaker. That’s why I’m quiet in meetings until the end of the conversation after I’ve been listening and cultivating my ideas carefully. I’m assuming that there are more people out there like me, so here is some take away for us slow digesters to go deeper. Why do I take notes during the sermon? I confess that most of the time I file these away and never discuss them nor look at them again. I’ve got a nice thick file in my filing cabinet that serves no purpose. What a waste of time this is if my focus is getting the right stuff written down on my paper rather than hearing the voice of God. However, every once and a while I look over them again. Why not cultivate a discipline of revisiting what God was speaking to me through the sermon? Then I can go back and reflect, meditate on what was said. Hop off the motorcycle and ride a bicycle down the same road and see much more of the beauty, even though it takes a little work to pedal my way through this time. I try to do this first with my wife – a conversation in the car or around the table at lunch. Then I might ask a friend what his take away was to the message. On Monday night I gathered with my worship team at our rehearsal and we took some time to reflect together. There were some beautiful views that we described to one another. Finally, why not spend some time revisiting one idea from the sermon in a quiet time? Our spiritual life was never meant to be fully realized or practiced in an hour and 15 minutes once a week on a Sunday morning anyway. I struggle with the same problem as I craft the worship service. It’s hard to make a ‘cue sheet’ that determines the order of service and the timing of each element. So often we plow through our songs and sermons rather than open up the time to reflect deeper, to be silent before the Lord, to pray or meditate on Scripture – to listen as opposed to just hear. This is very much a fault of our American rushed way of life – we bring it right into our church worship service. I need to always carefully use those precious minutes where we gather as a church family to worship and leave some margins to slow down. Now, here is my take away from the ‘Going Deeper’ sermon. Gary made 5 points with huge implications about understanding the basics of authentic spirituality. I’ll list them at the end because they are worth contemplating. But by far, the part that captured me most was the illustration in the introduction. It was from the missionary Hudson Taylor – advice to a new missionary. “What spills over when your cup gets bumped?” Our response when we get dissed (disrespect, disappointment, discouragement, or disagreement) will always either come from the flesh or from the Spirit. It’s in the crunch time that we see the real stuff that’s inside. Jesus said, “By their fruit you will know them.” What spills over when you get bumped? This was a convicting question. It reminded me of a significant time of spiritual formation that happened in my life a few years ago. I was praying one morning up by the window in my bedroom. As I asked God to provide us with more children, God impressed me with this message. “You are not ready for more children. Look at the way you are treating your own son. Pray instead that I would make you into a better father, adequate for the task.” Conviction set in – I was angry more often than not as I tried to maintain control of my 3-year-old son, often shaming him in my discipline rather than building into his life with love. Taking a quick ‘Spirit-fruit’ test for a situation the night before, I was 0 for 9 – a miserable failure. I hated myself because of this failure that was hurting my son most of all. Billy was scared of me because I would yell and often grab him to get his attention. I could sense him pulling away. How could I father more children? Worse yet, how in the world would I be adequate to deal with Billy as a teen if I couldn’t handle him at 3? More importantly, although not in my thoughts at the time, how could I fulfill the ministry that God was calling me to, to be a father to many children – foster children, deeply wounded, neglected, emotionally and physically abused? God had to get my attention and he did that day. I needed to enter a new era – the era of ‘overflow.’ God graciously began to lead me there and still is. Since then I have tried to focus every response based on this Scripture. “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” (Rom. 8:6-8, NIV) When my cup gets bumped, what pours out – filth or fresh fruit? Am I responding from my flesh (sinful nature) or from the Spirit? It’s pretty simple according to this passage. Is the overflow of my life bringing death, or is it bringing life and peace? As for me, I pray daily for life and peace. I’m getting better – praise God that I see progress. That doesn’t look like perfection though. It looks more like being aware that the flesh is starting to surface and catching it before death spews out. It also looks like humility in saying, “I’m sorry,” when I fail. Praise God that he is into redemption and forgiveness! That’s my major takeaway – a reminder of where I’ve been and a call to go deeper – to let God’s Spirit to take me further in the right direction – the direction of life and peace in the overflow of the Spirit. God, fill me up so I can be poured out. Overflow in me for your glory and for those to whom I am called to bring life and peace.

Some sermon notes:

1. The source of the Spirit-fruit is the Holy Spirit.
2. The nature of Spirit-fruit is moral character – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
3. The formation of Sprit-fruit is gradual and lifelong.
4. The manifestation of Spirit-fruit is holistic – all nine are equally important; they are the fruit of the Spirit not ‘fruits.’ Lacking in one is a major leak that keeps us from filling up let alone spilling over.
5. The purpose of Spirit-fruit is ministry – it exists for the benefit of others

I loved Gary’s brief definitions of each of the fruit:

Love – self-giving service for others – intentionally listed first
Joy – inner reality; a bubbling spring of water underneath all the muck
Peace – inner-calm; the recognition of the possession of adequate resources
Patience – non-irritable; (self explanatory and very convicting so moved on quickly)
Kindness – a feeling that induces action
Goodness – generosity – giving it all away (time, talents, money, life)
Faithfulness – reliability, trustworthiness
Gentleness – strength under control; humility
Self-Control – strong passions/convictions, but harnessed

The ‘Spilling Over’ series has begun at our church. I am so hopeful that this is going to be a significant refocusing time for our church. We need some marching orders that unify us with a renewed excitement and passion for life in Christ and for his glory. As Sunday services rolled along, I had a strong sense from the Lord, a message so to speak. It wasn’t audible, but deeply felt. We were singing the words to the theme song I have chosen, called ‘Overflow’ by Matt Goss. The chorus is this: Fill me up so I can be poured out Fill me up so I can be poured out Fill me up ‘till I overflow with you Overflow in me, Jesus, overflow in me Pour your Spirit out, Jesus, and overflow in me. And the message impressed upon my heart was, “you cannot fabricate a move of my Spirit. I will do what I want, when I want, with whom I want, and to whatever measure I want.” Yes, Lord, but I want you to do that work in me, through me, and now in a big way! I desperately want to see more of that work in this church, and in the lives of my friends and family. This message confirms a few important things that I need to keep in my mind. You see, I have an intense desire to be influential for God’s kingdom. It was that way in the classroom in my former life as a high school teacher, and only in the past few years of pastoral ministry has my passion matched and surpassed the intensity I felt in the classroom. (I praise God for this answer to prayer!) So here are three points that I take away from what God impressed upon my heart on Sunday.

1. God is sovereign and his plans are providential. God is always leading us – we are not leading him. Is this ‘era of overflow’ in my life something that I have invented or  something I have discovered? It is certainly the latter – I am just aligning myself with God’s will for my life. More than that, I believe it is a much greater movement that I am just becoming a part of. In this sense, our church’s focus on ‘Spilling Over’ is not a good idea by the church leadership. It is a plan of God for his church – for all of his people who have been called to be a blessing, taking Christ to a thirsty and needy world. It is a movement with one purpose – that God’s glory would be revealed in, to and through us to the world. “Blessed to be a blessing.” That was the gist of Gary’s sermon on Sunday. We are simply and wonderfully aligning ourselves with God’s will for us as his church – the ‘spilling over’ is God equipping us with the abundant resources of the Holy Spirit to carry out his purpose in and through our lives. The exciting part is what follows as we discover and carry out that purpose and then praise God publicly declaring his works for all to see.

2. My job as a leader in our church is to know God and to be certain that I am listening to and following his will. I must be open to whatever he wants to do in and through me even when it is terrifying, risky and way beyond me and my natural abilities. It certainly will be. Were any of Jesus’ disciples qualified to do the ministry that God did through them? Were any of the Old Testament prophets and leaders? This gets down to the work of faith – prayer, studying Scripture, and allowing God’s people to be God’s voice in my life. Then responding in obedience and trust.

3. Worship keeps the focus on him and off of me. I must be a worshiper above all else. A worshiper is God-focused and God-confident. Worship moves us off of the throne of our kingdom and brings us to our knees, facedown in awe of God in his kingdom. There is no room for pride – everything that God does in and through me, God does. Nothing comes
from me. Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5, NIV) Pride will kill the work of the Holy Spirit because pride is a self-consuming response. A life filled with self cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit.

My theme verse as a worship leader has been this since the beginning as a 19-year-old at Biola University. “Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.” (2Cor. 3:4-5, NIV) This was the apostle Paul’s mentality and it must be mine. “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. “ (2Cor. 4:5-8, NIV) My focus is never to be my ministry – it is to be the glory of God in the face of Christ. I am a clay pot – uniquely shaped by my Maker for the specific purpose of pouring out whatever he has given to me. I am a servant to my church family for Jesus’ sake. Anything good that appears to come from me is coming from him. It is his power at work through me. Wow! This passage of Scripture is packed with so much truth. God continue the work you have started in and through me – in and through our church. Keep my focus on you. God, it’s not about my positioning and planning glorious things for my life and for my church. My position must be on my knees praying for humility, praying for our church and your work among us, praying for clarity as I seek and then follow your ways, and praising you for the work that I see you doing. My planning must be to open my life up to being a servant to your people – a servant of Jesus. Then and only then will you do glorious things.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Eph. 3:20-21, NIV)