GAB
January 6th, 2008, 03:03 PM
Renewing Your Life
Oak Ridge Community Church, Clarksville, Maryland
January 6, 2008
Pastor John Toner
These are my sermon notes, not the sermon itself, which is the intellectual property of Pastor Toner and the church. The audio file will be available at http://oakridgecc.org/wordpress/ministries/sermon-downloads/.
Scripture quotations are from the New King James Bible, which is the Bible I use for studying.
There are four legs to Christian life:
• Prayer (John 16:24)—“ Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
• The Word of God (Psalm 119:11)—“ Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.
• Fellowship (1 John 1:2)—“ the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us”
• Evangelism or Witness (1 John 1:3)—“ that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
The center of our Christian lives are Christ and the Holy Spirit, Who change us.
It is hard to write specific goals for improvements in our Christian life. It’s hard to say “This year I will be 17% more effective in prayer.”
There are two extremes we face in our Christian walk: Legalism and laziness.
There are three key words for this sermon:
• Heart
• Community (our common destiny)
• Kaizen
Romans 12:2 tells us, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Our purpose in life is to renew our minds, not to just pass our eyes over the verses or check off tick marks in our Bible reading plan.”
The Greek work we translate as transform is ‘metamorphoo’, which is also the root word for “metamorphosis”. For a woman, the image of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly is common. What is it for a man? (Image: Bill Bixby turning into the Hulk) (Laughter) Except for us, we are starting at the Hulk and turning back into a human.
Heart
The first transplant of a heart was from a chimpanzee to a man in 1961. The transplant failed. The first successful transplant of a human heart was in 1964 in South Africa; the patient lasted several days until pneumonia killed him. Recently, a person died who had a transplanted heart for 25 ½ years.
The first heart transplant, however, was mentioned in the Bible in Ezekiel 36:25-27: “25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
If we could see what we look like from the inside, our behavior would change.
Community
In the days of Jesus, few people could afford a copy of the Bible themselves; they obtained one copy for their synagogue and studied together. You see this in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus reads from the Book of Isaiah in Capernaum. In addition, people talked together about they heard throughout the week.
Not only did they study together, the people of Israel throughout the Old Testament were surrounded by enemies with low morals. The First Century Christians had similar problems, surrounded by enemies in a decadent culture. In 21st Century America, we don’t have a common enemy. Our Hollywood heroes work alone, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
However, we are also surrounded by enemies.
We should not make our focus on spiritual improvement a competition between men. We have a common destiny, though it might be less so than the 1st Century Christians.
In Numbers 22, Baalam blesses instead of curses Israel, However, he advises the enemy to corrupt the Israeli morals instead.
Our thinking is already corrupted. We must rely on each other’s obedience.
Colossians 3:16 states “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”. Instead of didactic teaching—one person in front telling everyone what to think—we should teach each other.
The more we observe good practices in our private life, the better the health of the church.
An example is that of the Washington Redskins. After the loss in Buffalo, Coach Joe Gibbs took ownership of the loss. It was his and his alone. The team took this beyond personal accountability. Think less about yourself so your team/church can be better.
In a twelve-step program, the twelfth step is to help one another. God does not want us to replace sinful selfishness with spiritual selfishness. Romans 15:1 states, “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.”
Kaizen
Matthew 25:21—“His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’”
Luke 16:10—“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.”
We don’t like to change. The bigger the change, the scarier it seems, so psychologists say.
In Japan, after the Second World War, the philosophy changed from big to “What is the smallest thing we can do to increase quality? They did this, and then they asked, “What is the next-smallest thing we can do to increase quality?” This went on through drastic improvements in quality.
We can all do small things to improve ourselves. For example, a woman with small children who was 75 pounds overweight was suggested that she do 30 minutes of active exercise each day. She didn’t have it, she said. But she watched 30 minutes of TV each day, so the doctor suggested marching 1 minute through the commercials. When she could do this, he suggested marching through all the commercials, and soon she was able to march through all the program and lost her weight.
Accumulate small changes and great things can happen. This can occur in our spiritual lives as well.
Oak Ridge Community Church, Clarksville, Maryland
January 6, 2008
Pastor John Toner
These are my sermon notes, not the sermon itself, which is the intellectual property of Pastor Toner and the church. The audio file will be available at http://oakridgecc.org/wordpress/ministries/sermon-downloads/.
Scripture quotations are from the New King James Bible, which is the Bible I use for studying.
There are four legs to Christian life:
• Prayer (John 16:24)—“ Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
• The Word of God (Psalm 119:11)—“ Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.
• Fellowship (1 John 1:2)—“ the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us”
• Evangelism or Witness (1 John 1:3)—“ that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
The center of our Christian lives are Christ and the Holy Spirit, Who change us.
It is hard to write specific goals for improvements in our Christian life. It’s hard to say “This year I will be 17% more effective in prayer.”
There are two extremes we face in our Christian walk: Legalism and laziness.
There are three key words for this sermon:
• Heart
• Community (our common destiny)
• Kaizen
Romans 12:2 tells us, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Our purpose in life is to renew our minds, not to just pass our eyes over the verses or check off tick marks in our Bible reading plan.”
The Greek work we translate as transform is ‘metamorphoo’, which is also the root word for “metamorphosis”. For a woman, the image of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly is common. What is it for a man? (Image: Bill Bixby turning into the Hulk) (Laughter) Except for us, we are starting at the Hulk and turning back into a human.
Heart
The first transplant of a heart was from a chimpanzee to a man in 1961. The transplant failed. The first successful transplant of a human heart was in 1964 in South Africa; the patient lasted several days until pneumonia killed him. Recently, a person died who had a transplanted heart for 25 ½ years.
The first heart transplant, however, was mentioned in the Bible in Ezekiel 36:25-27: “25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
If we could see what we look like from the inside, our behavior would change.
Community
In the days of Jesus, few people could afford a copy of the Bible themselves; they obtained one copy for their synagogue and studied together. You see this in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus reads from the Book of Isaiah in Capernaum. In addition, people talked together about they heard throughout the week.
Not only did they study together, the people of Israel throughout the Old Testament were surrounded by enemies with low morals. The First Century Christians had similar problems, surrounded by enemies in a decadent culture. In 21st Century America, we don’t have a common enemy. Our Hollywood heroes work alone, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
However, we are also surrounded by enemies.
We should not make our focus on spiritual improvement a competition between men. We have a common destiny, though it might be less so than the 1st Century Christians.
In Numbers 22, Baalam blesses instead of curses Israel, However, he advises the enemy to corrupt the Israeli morals instead.
Our thinking is already corrupted. We must rely on each other’s obedience.
Colossians 3:16 states “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”. Instead of didactic teaching—one person in front telling everyone what to think—we should teach each other.
The more we observe good practices in our private life, the better the health of the church.
An example is that of the Washington Redskins. After the loss in Buffalo, Coach Joe Gibbs took ownership of the loss. It was his and his alone. The team took this beyond personal accountability. Think less about yourself so your team/church can be better.
In a twelve-step program, the twelfth step is to help one another. God does not want us to replace sinful selfishness with spiritual selfishness. Romans 15:1 states, “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.”
Kaizen
Matthew 25:21—“His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’”
Luke 16:10—“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.”
We don’t like to change. The bigger the change, the scarier it seems, so psychologists say.
In Japan, after the Second World War, the philosophy changed from big to “What is the smallest thing we can do to increase quality? They did this, and then they asked, “What is the next-smallest thing we can do to increase quality?” This went on through drastic improvements in quality.
We can all do small things to improve ourselves. For example, a woman with small children who was 75 pounds overweight was suggested that she do 30 minutes of active exercise each day. She didn’t have it, she said. But she watched 30 minutes of TV each day, so the doctor suggested marching 1 minute through the commercials. When she could do this, he suggested marching through all the commercials, and soon she was able to march through all the program and lost her weight.
Accumulate small changes and great things can happen. This can occur in our spiritual lives as well.