Sunday, October 23, 2005
Sermon Notes: 10/16/05--Rehab, pt. 3
Sermon notes taken from outlines of the pastor. Acutal sermon available on videotape. ask about in comments section, via email, or contacting the pastor.
Scripture: Romans 10:9-11; 2 Peter 1:10-11
As I am sharing my phsyical torment with you, the idea of physical therapy and rehab, we conclude this week with part three of our rehab series, and the conclusion, I am sure you are all thankful for not having to hear anymore about my knee.
Over the past two weeks, we talked about the process of rehab, how we are all separated from God; kind of how ligaments are separated from bone and produce pain. We need that connection to function at our fullest, and we seek ways to fix the problem. If we don't listen to the right therapist, we do more harm than good. We talked about being receptive to instruction, to guidance...the right kind of gidance, and also we talked about endurance and perseverance. We have to endure the wearing off of the "new car smell" of fresh belief in Christ and new Christianhood and mature as believers forged in the fires of this trialbed we call life.
Now, in our final installment, we are going to talk about two other elements or key parts in our spiritual rehabilitation/reconciliation with God, namely Faith and confession and Dilligence.
The first verse listed above deals with faith and confession. We first have to believe in the process, to trust in our therapist and their knowledge of the situation. I had to develop that trust with Tammy and the gang, and it took some time to do so. I went in wary, unsure of myself and especially unsure of THEM. I had to trust that they knew more than I did about my condition, that their knowledge of technique would be superior to my own. I had to trust that they would not do any harm, or push me farther than I was able to go.
Likewise, we have to have faith and trust in God. We have to trust that He, as our divine therapist, has the right plan and procedures for us. WE have to trust in his ways and in His words. We have to trust in the commandments He gives us. We have to be able to trust when he puts us in new situations. When Tammy and Co. at the therapy center took away my crutches, or introduced a new exercise/torture regimen, I was a little wary at first. However, I looked at my past with them and saw that they had not led me astray yet. Likewise, we have to trust that God will lead us in the right direction, that he will not overburden us. In fact, we have his word in scripture. Just as I have a promise that they will not hurt me, we hve a promise from God that he will not overburden us.
Now, about that confession part. It sometimes must come before the faith. We have to admit that we do not know it all. I had to admit that I didn't have the foggiest clue about treating my leg, and that I was helpless. I could not go anywhere on my own. I could not fix it on my own. I had to admit to Tammy and Co. when my leg was hurting or when I could bear no more exercise. If I didn't, and tried to show off, then I ended up doing more harm than good.
Likewise, we have to admit to God two things. First, we have to admit that we cannot do this alone. WE have to admit we are helpless before evil and before the winds of change. WE have to admit that we have that hole in our hearts, and admit that we serached in the wrong places and need God. Next, we hvae to be willing to confess and admit when we are overburdened, when we need help, when we need to use a crutch or get a hand up so we do not fall. God is not annoyed by this. He encourages it. He wants a close relationship with us. He wants us to be closer than a doctor and patient. He wants us to be closer than friends. He wants to be our ultimate support and motivator, our ultimate comforter. HE wants to be with us. Brokendown, used up, foul, silly, little us. And he was willing to send a piece of Himself, His son, to this world to feel what we feel, so we could know he had the understanding and the experiences we did.
WE have to confess our belief and support of God, but we also have to confess our imperfections and burdens, and we know this can be hard as well. We also have to confess that the good things are not just our own work, but rather that it is God working through us. I tried to do the rehab, but I needed Tammy and Co.'s guidance working through me to get me this far. Likewise, with God.
For more on faith, check out Hebrews Ch11, emphasis for our purposes on vs. 1 and 2.
The next part of our salvation and reconciliation with God is Dilligence. My therapy (read torture) is a complex prgram of stretches and bends and lifts. I have to do it so much time a day, so many times a day. I have to go to therapy three times a week. Do I want to all the time? Heck no. However, I know that in order to get better at standing and moving, I have to go in. I have to brave the twisting of Tammy and Col., I have to barve the bike of death in order to get better.
We have to stick to the program. We have to keep going with what God sets out for us to do. And, mind you, every part is different. God gears what he calls us to do to our strengths and weaknesses. He takes us beyond what we can do or think we can do and does the impossible. Just like great physical therapists like Tammy. A couple of weeks ago I never thought I would be able to do this (rises out of wheelchair and stans up straight, without crutch, and then stands on one leg, the bad leg,for a count of over 20). However, her training me and the dilligence of sticking with it have allowed me to get this far. however, truly, it is all through the grace of God, but let's use it as a metaphor.
With God as our therapist and trainer, we can go beyond our feeble gifts and strenhts and do more, the impossible. Look at Moses. He didn't have the dilligence to take on Pharoah, but God got him to be dilligent. Look at jonah. Same deal. God wants us to stick to it and follow through.
This involves work on our part. I can't just let the therapists do everything, though I am sure sometimes it seems to them as if I am. I have some homework I have to do, exercises to keep the flexibility and mobility of my knee. If I didn't do them, I would not be where I am. Likewise, there are some homework things God wants us to have the dilligence to do, it shows dilligence and perseverance, as outlined in that 2Peter verse.
He wants us to pray, not just to ask for our wants and needs, but to give praise, to share concerns, to give our highs and lows. He desires conversation with our hearts, and also he desires conversations with our minds and thoughts. This requires study and reading of hte Scripture. It can mean going through a devotional. We, listening to the holy spirit, have to find the tools that are out there, provided by God, to help us do our work of sticking with Him and showing Him we are in this for the long haul. And by so doing, we get our faith muscles exercising, and we get our spiritual muscles going, and pretty soon, we are running the race right up there with Paul and Peter and the gang, even up with the likes of Billy Graham.
Now, this does not mean that we will lead tent revivals, though it doesn't mean we won't. We will be lifted up into people healing that disconnect with God, and the ties of study and prayer and dilligence growing stronger, connecting us better with God, like the ligaments I am working on with my knee. This relationship, will never be fully realized until we meet God, but we have to keep exercising it, because by doing so, the path we follow will get easier to handle. There will still be pains and joys, highs and lows, but with oour muscles of faith and perseverance and trust working, we can overcome the worldly things thrown at us. However, to do this, we have to be dilligent. We have to be willing to put the work in. We have to confess we havent done so i the past, and we have to have faith that it will be beneficial to us. Are you ready? Let's become rehab hounds, working out and strengthening those muscles, because by doing so, we set examples for others.
There's a girl at the center who hurt her knee like me. She wasn't exercising it or doing well. Then she saw the chubby old guy working, and I encouraged her. She saw that though it hurt, especially for an old guy, she should be doing it. I told her my own rehab journey. Seeing her make that bike pedal go around was great. Feeling like I helped in a small way to heal her was a blessing. Think how much more so when we are talking about our eternal souls. Let's pray.
Scripture: Romans 10:9-11; 2 Peter 1:10-11
As I am sharing my phsyical torment with you, the idea of physical therapy and rehab, we conclude this week with part three of our rehab series, and the conclusion, I am sure you are all thankful for not having to hear anymore about my knee.
Over the past two weeks, we talked about the process of rehab, how we are all separated from God; kind of how ligaments are separated from bone and produce pain. We need that connection to function at our fullest, and we seek ways to fix the problem. If we don't listen to the right therapist, we do more harm than good. We talked about being receptive to instruction, to guidance...the right kind of gidance, and also we talked about endurance and perseverance. We have to endure the wearing off of the "new car smell" of fresh belief in Christ and new Christianhood and mature as believers forged in the fires of this trialbed we call life.
Now, in our final installment, we are going to talk about two other elements or key parts in our spiritual rehabilitation/reconciliation with God, namely Faith and confession and Dilligence.
The first verse listed above deals with faith and confession. We first have to believe in the process, to trust in our therapist and their knowledge of the situation. I had to develop that trust with Tammy and the gang, and it took some time to do so. I went in wary, unsure of myself and especially unsure of THEM. I had to trust that they knew more than I did about my condition, that their knowledge of technique would be superior to my own. I had to trust that they would not do any harm, or push me farther than I was able to go.
Likewise, we have to have faith and trust in God. We have to trust that He, as our divine therapist, has the right plan and procedures for us. WE have to trust in his ways and in His words. We have to trust in the commandments He gives us. We have to be able to trust when he puts us in new situations. When Tammy and Co. at the therapy center took away my crutches, or introduced a new exercise/torture regimen, I was a little wary at first. However, I looked at my past with them and saw that they had not led me astray yet. Likewise, we have to trust that God will lead us in the right direction, that he will not overburden us. In fact, we have his word in scripture. Just as I have a promise that they will not hurt me, we hve a promise from God that he will not overburden us.
Now, about that confession part. It sometimes must come before the faith. We have to admit that we do not know it all. I had to admit that I didn't have the foggiest clue about treating my leg, and that I was helpless. I could not go anywhere on my own. I could not fix it on my own. I had to admit to Tammy and Co. when my leg was hurting or when I could bear no more exercise. If I didn't, and tried to show off, then I ended up doing more harm than good.
Likewise, we have to admit to God two things. First, we have to admit that we cannot do this alone. WE have to admit we are helpless before evil and before the winds of change. WE have to admit that we have that hole in our hearts, and admit that we serached in the wrong places and need God. Next, we hvae to be willing to confess and admit when we are overburdened, when we need help, when we need to use a crutch or get a hand up so we do not fall. God is not annoyed by this. He encourages it. He wants a close relationship with us. He wants us to be closer than a doctor and patient. He wants us to be closer than friends. He wants to be our ultimate support and motivator, our ultimate comforter. HE wants to be with us. Brokendown, used up, foul, silly, little us. And he was willing to send a piece of Himself, His son, to this world to feel what we feel, so we could know he had the understanding and the experiences we did.
WE have to confess our belief and support of God, but we also have to confess our imperfections and burdens, and we know this can be hard as well. We also have to confess that the good things are not just our own work, but rather that it is God working through us. I tried to do the rehab, but I needed Tammy and Co.'s guidance working through me to get me this far. Likewise, with God.
For more on faith, check out Hebrews Ch11, emphasis for our purposes on vs. 1 and 2.
The next part of our salvation and reconciliation with God is Dilligence. My therapy (read torture) is a complex prgram of stretches and bends and lifts. I have to do it so much time a day, so many times a day. I have to go to therapy three times a week. Do I want to all the time? Heck no. However, I know that in order to get better at standing and moving, I have to go in. I have to brave the twisting of Tammy and Col., I have to barve the bike of death in order to get better.
We have to stick to the program. We have to keep going with what God sets out for us to do. And, mind you, every part is different. God gears what he calls us to do to our strengths and weaknesses. He takes us beyond what we can do or think we can do and does the impossible. Just like great physical therapists like Tammy. A couple of weeks ago I never thought I would be able to do this (rises out of wheelchair and stans up straight, without crutch, and then stands on one leg, the bad leg,for a count of over 20). However, her training me and the dilligence of sticking with it have allowed me to get this far. however, truly, it is all through the grace of God, but let's use it as a metaphor.
With God as our therapist and trainer, we can go beyond our feeble gifts and strenhts and do more, the impossible. Look at Moses. He didn't have the dilligence to take on Pharoah, but God got him to be dilligent. Look at jonah. Same deal. God wants us to stick to it and follow through.
This involves work on our part. I can't just let the therapists do everything, though I am sure sometimes it seems to them as if I am. I have some homework I have to do, exercises to keep the flexibility and mobility of my knee. If I didn't do them, I would not be where I am. Likewise, there are some homework things God wants us to have the dilligence to do, it shows dilligence and perseverance, as outlined in that 2Peter verse.
He wants us to pray, not just to ask for our wants and needs, but to give praise, to share concerns, to give our highs and lows. He desires conversation with our hearts, and also he desires conversations with our minds and thoughts. This requires study and reading of hte Scripture. It can mean going through a devotional. We, listening to the holy spirit, have to find the tools that are out there, provided by God, to help us do our work of sticking with Him and showing Him we are in this for the long haul. And by so doing, we get our faith muscles exercising, and we get our spiritual muscles going, and pretty soon, we are running the race right up there with Paul and Peter and the gang, even up with the likes of Billy Graham.
Now, this does not mean that we will lead tent revivals, though it doesn't mean we won't. We will be lifted up into people healing that disconnect with God, and the ties of study and prayer and dilligence growing stronger, connecting us better with God, like the ligaments I am working on with my knee. This relationship, will never be fully realized until we meet God, but we have to keep exercising it, because by doing so, the path we follow will get easier to handle. There will still be pains and joys, highs and lows, but with oour muscles of faith and perseverance and trust working, we can overcome the worldly things thrown at us. However, to do this, we have to be dilligent. We have to be willing to put the work in. We have to confess we havent done so i the past, and we have to have faith that it will be beneficial to us. Are you ready? Let's become rehab hounds, working out and strengthening those muscles, because by doing so, we set examples for others.
There's a girl at the center who hurt her knee like me. She wasn't exercising it or doing well. Then she saw the chubby old guy working, and I encouraged her. She saw that though it hurt, especially for an old guy, she should be doing it. I told her my own rehab journey. Seeing her make that bike pedal go around was great. Feeling like I helped in a small way to heal her was a blessing. Think how much more so when we are talking about our eternal souls. Let's pray.
# posted by Mark : 1:26 PM
