“Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.” Ephesians 4:31  Today’s verse is about pivoting away from whatever degree of anger is in us, whatever form it takes, whatever level it’s at, toward a new Kingdom way of being, responding, reacting that is far more beautiful and good. Today is about the action that you and I can take to open a space for the Holy Spirit and to start transforming the anger within us.  

Jesus is our model for attitude, and behavior, and perspective, and concepts. You see, only Jesus, is the whole package. Only Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. If we want to have life, real life, where we don’t just pick and choose aspects of Jesus to incorporate. We don’t pick his death for our sins so that we can get to heaven when we die. We don’t just pick his teachings as pithy words of comfort. We don’t just have him as a friend to keep us company and to keep us from being lonely. We don’t just have him as a champion for our causes, whatever our cause may be. If we want to have life we must learn the Jesus way of life. We must enroll in the school of Jesus. Where Jesus himself is the teacher. Jesus himself is the subject. And Jesus himself is the ultimate standard of truth, but it’s all of him and we have to choose him.  Pick a situation that you are in; maybe something that is troubling you, maybe a decision you’re having to make, maybe a place you find yourself in and ask yourself the question, am I allowing Jesus to teach me how to handle this? Do I want Jesus to teach me how to handle this? 

The Bible describes a hard-hearted person in Matthew 13:15, This is Jesus speaking, “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes." I have just an observation, you can decide it's not true, but to me it has been. The longer we are Christians, the more certain we become, the more we nurture anger and think it righteous, the higher our risk of becoming hard hearted. And throughout the Bible Gods people have often had the hardest hearts. 

Did God really say you can't do this, or you can't do that? This kind of thought gets in our minds and then we nurture the thought. We cultivate the thought and so begins the process of eventually firing God and replacing him with me, ourselves, and off the rails we go to live happily ever after, or maybe not. So let me just bring this down to us again. I want to keep warning us to not let this stir up in us anger with finger pointed to some group out there, that is absolutely fruitless, if not outright uncchristian.The thing for us to do is draw this onto ourselves. So let me show you what I mean. I am at the center of futile thinking. At the center of futile thinking, in other words, is the me and everything the me wants. I want to do what I want to do. I know best. I think this is good. I think that is right. I want to do whatever I feel like doing. What's true for me is true for me, even if it's not actually true. If I think it's true or want it to be true or think it should be true, then it is true enough for me even if it is not objectively or actually true according to reality as established by God. And if all of this is starting to sound just a tad bit absurd, then I am communicating very clearly because it is.    

The politics of the world matters; right, left, Democrat, Republican, conservative, progressive. But the church is a community of those whose first identity is who they are in the Trinity and to the Trinity. So, our first passion and first agenda and first focus is not right, left, progressive, conservative, Democrat, Republican. It is kingdom. It is the way of Jesus. Ephesians 4 and verse 15, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”   

You see, whether we realize it or not, we are all living a story. I know some of you in your mind, are in your head just saying, "No, I'm not. I live in the real world.” But you see the real world is a story. The real the real world is a series of connected events and actions by significant characters that are leading to a particular end. You are living a story. The question is, which story are you living?   Is it a fantasy? One that you made up in your head? One that requires you to ignore truth and be blind to the realities around you? Or is it the story that makes sense of reality as it is? Is it the story of God? 

The story continues to unfold today as it has for thousands of years. God is creating a community that identifies as God's people and they and he interact, relate, and work together toward the fulfillment of his purposes; land, people, God, place, heaven, earth, co-mingling, interacting, intersecting, roots being set down, and all of this adding up to this demonstration to the world. This is who God is, and this is what life can be like under him. See, this is what church means, what I'm describing. This is what church is. And this is why church matters.

Our service on Sunday was a deep breath from the day-to-day crazy of our lives. Pastor Mike encouraged us to sit in this idea that God's invitation to you to follow him, to trust him, to live in his ways, is immense. It covers quite literally everything.”   “The one who loves fulfills the law.” - Romans 13:18  Please use this link from The Bible Project to add context to The Never Ending Story: Law message from Sunday.  

What is church about? Why does it matter? Does it matter? What are we attempting to communicate? What are we attempting to say to one another? What are we attempting to say to ourselves? And what are we attempting to say and demonstrate to a hurting world?  There is no one like our God! 

But when you think about it for a second, you think about what would have to be true about the world for us all to be walking around naked and feel no shame. What would have to be true about the world? What would have to be true about us for us to live unguarded, unshielded, fully transparent lives with each other? Well it would have to be a world where we were not a threat to each other, where we weren't always trying to manipulate and control each other. It would have to be a world of honor. A world of respect. A world of truth and humility. Not to mention, of course, it would have to be a world with really good weather and completely free of mosquitoes. And when you think about it, you realize that it is actually the perfect phrase to encapsulate the storyteller's opening scene of how God created a world that works. A world of harmony. A world of flourishing. A world where everything is as it should be. In short, it is the perfect phrase to describe this state of being that the biblical authors refer to as shalom, peace, universal flourishing, the way things ought to be.