March 2010 Archives

There is a tremendous moral chasm that separates us from God. It is a chasm created by sin and every human attempt to bridge that divide just leads to spiritual death below. But God chose to bridge that chasm - and that bridge is called the cross.

But there is an even greater chasm that divides us, one that is also bridged by the cross. God is distant from us not only because of a moral chasm but because “his thoughts are not our thoughts” and “his ways are not our ways” — God is almost incomprehensible to us. Likewise, our experience as struggling human beings is far removed from God. The cross bridges this chasm as well. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, both makes God known to us and allows God to empathize with our struggles. We can cross over the chasm to God because he first crossed over to us.

Click to play.

Leading up to and including Easter, we will be contemplating the significance and meaning of the cross. Designed as a means of degradation and terror, the cross is a particularly unlikely symbol of hope. If the early church had hired a PR firm to design a logo to represent all of Christianity, the cross wouldn’t have survived the first focus group. Yet the cross remains the central symbol of those who follow Jesus. Why?

The answer is that the cross is the central symbol for our faith because it was the central purpose for Jesus’ entire life and is thus the central focus of the New Testament. More than anything, the cross demonstrates our abject need. There was nothing we could do to save ourselves; God had to do it all. And so he sent his son for us, his love displayed on the cross.

Click to play.

This month’s Kid Connection family service focused on honor - letting someone know you see how valuable they really are. This week’s bottom line focus was the importance of showing honor to those whom God has placed above us. David understood how important this kind of honor is and showed it when he refused to harm King Saul. Sadly, David did not pass this lesson down to his son Absalom whose failure to show honor ended up costing the lives of thousands and broke the heart of many more.

This material is loosely based on the 252Basics curriculum from Northpoint Community Church.

Click to play.

We’ve spent several weeks exploring how God calls us to a life with margin, back away from the edge where one misstep spells disaster. We’ve explored the need for margin in our time, our finances, our emotional energy but nowhere is the need for margin more apparent than in the moral sphere of our lives. Missteps in other areas of our lives can often be corrected but crossing the line morally can often lead to lifelong consequences.

Part of making room for life is establishing safe personal boundaries that keep us from putting the most important part of our lives at stake — our relationships, our commitments, our integrity.

Click to play.