Are we ashamed?

Did you know that God is seeking men (and women) who will raise holy hands to Him in worship and prayer?
I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. 1 Timothy 2:8 (NIV)
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and praise the LORD. Psalm 134:2 (NIV)

Let me be clear; this is not a Biblical command. If we do not raise our hands in worship, that is NOT sin. I am not insisting that people do this, but quite honestly most of you don't because you are more worried about what people think that what God desires. If you don't raise your hands in submissive prayer to God, have you analyzed why?

It could be that you are ashamed to raise your hands. You could be worried about what people think. We tell ourselves that we don't want to upset new visitors. Relax about that; visitors appreciate anything that is authentic. They can sniff out phony.

I had this in tomorrow's sermon and I took it out because the sermon was too long, so I blogged it instead. Personally, I raise my hands to the King of Glory because He deserves it. I love Him because He loved me enough to pluck me out of hell. He is my primary affection and I am vastly more worried about what He thinks than what people think. Jesus got pretty blunt about this in his discussion about who is a true disciple of his:
Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Luke 9:23-26 NIV

Am I ashamed of him? Unless you have a bum shoulder, let yourself go.

Don’t force it (you should not do something that you do not truly feel), but submit and try it.
We fist pump an Albert Pujols' home run, but won't submit our hands in prayer and worship. I have seen a bunch of you go crazy over AP; how about we show our appreciation to the King of Glory?

The Bridge -- Haiti Relief Plans

OK. Here are The Bridge's response plans for the earthquake disaster in Haiti. I am hearing from a lot of you, so this must have really touched your heart as we know it has touched God's.

1. PRAY. Keep all of the efforts and the people who have been devastated at the forefront of your prayers, but mainly focus on your faith that God is capable of bringing order and Glory out of the chaos and heartache.

2. If you would like to give money that will go to immediate relief, we would like to make some suggestions of quality organizations that have people on the ground already there that can make a difference today. You can just go online and give with a credit card.
a. Medical Teams International @ www.medicalteams.org. This is the medical group that will be in there quickly that Jon & Lisa Bird (Bridge members) work with in medical crisis situations like this. Please pray for Jon & Lisa as they are discerning their role in this crisis. Others of you in the medical community might want to contact Jon and Lisa about the possibility of getting down there to help with immediate medical needs.
b. Compassion International -- https://www.compassion.com/contribution/giving/disasterrelief.htm?referer=105910. This is a great way to get immediate help to kids as Compassion has such a LARGE presence with the orphanages in Haiti. The money that is given to this section of the website goes to Haiti today. We have a working relationship with CI and we trust them.
c. All 11 of these groups recommended by the Desiring God people would be good also. They are there already working. http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2188_11_charities_collecting_donations_for_haiti/

3. On Sunday, we will be taking a special offering for Growing Hope for Haiti which is run by Gerson & Heather Wickham (also some of the Bridge's own). This giving will be a little more long range as we resource our own missionaries to go take care of the people that they love so much. Gerson and Heather are here right now and could use a lot of prayer as Gerson does not currently know the health status of any of his family members and many others as you can imagine. Just make out checks to The Bridge and write Haiti in the memo. We will funnel the money to them.

4. Gerson and Heather are aware that many of you would like to go down there and physically help. They have agreed to keep us informed on how that may be able to happen. Probably will be a while as the immediate relief organizations have all of the top priority right now. I do think that it is beautiful that some of you are wanting to go. I am thinking and praying about it myself. If God wants us there, He will find a way to make that happen.

Situations like this are very challenging to our faith. Remember that sin and disobedience brought curse and disaster to this world, not God. And God must have some reason in His master plan to have allowed this fallen-world tragedy to have happened. Let's seek His face, rely on Him, and act as his ministers and missionaries. That requires sacrifice. Let me give an example -- if you give to the immediate need groups or to Gerson and Heather and then give less to your tithe at The Bridge or Gideon 300, what faith or sacrifice have you shown? This giving needs to be sacrificial (above and beyond) and God will respond both corporately and personally. Borrowing from one area of His Kingdom to serve another is not the way. We do that to Him with our time all the time. Think about that when you pay your satellite, cable, or unlimited texting bill and people are sleeping or bleeding in the streets of Port-au-Prince tonight.

Love you more than you know.

Connection Triggers

OK. Today I gave The Bridge some of my connection triggers that move me into an experience or a connection with God. I talked about how showers remind me of the washing away of my sin, of baptism (the death of the old man and being birthed as a new creation), of the living water of John 4. Any experience with being in water, swimming, whatever moves me toward God. I also talked about eating, that eating brings me to communion -- the bread and the wine -- the body and the blood -- and I am in AWE (love that word) of the risen Christ. CONNECTION. I also mentioned stop lights triggering stop sinning, go to war with sin, stop cussing at the stop light. Nuff said. Noah -- rainbow. Abraham -- circumcision -- HAHA. I want to know what your triggers are. I want to hear from you. What brings you to a connection with our Creator? Hit the comment button and let me know.

Bible Reading

I am a hypocrite. Right smack dab in the middle of preaching a sermon series on taking time to find God and rEFUEL in small things, I have started a LARGE Bible reading plan. I am reading through the Bible with The Journey church out of St. Louis and they are providing some excellent teaching videos and position papers along the way (like when we read Matthew 5 SOTM, they provide a paper on divorce and remarriage). All of this is very well done. You can look at it right here.

As we start the Story of God Part 1 tomorrow night, I want you to see these writings from the reading plan. Notice that the name of the class is not The Story of Me; it is God's story that we get to be a part of. Check this out from The Journey:
How do I read the Bible?
The Bible is not primarily a moral guidebook. The Bible, simply stated, is the greatest story ever told because it is God’s own story. Two guiding principles will help you as you endeavor to read God’s word:
1. The Bible is not primarily about you.
If the Bible is about us it becomes a
crushing burden, a set of moral
principles that we must, but cannot,
follow. Rightly understood, The Bible
is not a book of virtues; it is the story
of how God is redeeming his people
and all of creation through Jesus
Christ. The Bible is not primarily
about us. The Bible is all about Jesus.
2. The Bible is not about our search for
God. It is a story about God’s search
for us. This story has four basic
chapters: Creation, Fall, Redemption,
Restoration.

This is how we are going to divide up our study at The Bridge -- into these four segments. The first of these segments begins tomorrow night as we look at creation and the nature of God.

More on the four from the Journey's base writings:
Creation
The story does not begin with a God in hiding. God initiates the story by creating all that exists, including his prized creation – human beings – whom he pursued in relationship. What God created in the beginning was not just good, but perfect, whole, complete, lacking in nothing. He designed the Earth as an ideal environment for his creation to flourish.
Fall
Unfortunately, the first human beings ultimately chose to meet their needs apart from their perfect Creator. Moment by moment, we face the disastrous consequences of our rebellion. Created to enjoy God in loving dependence on him, human beings now face God’s wrath.
Created to relate with God in healthy community, we now hide from him. Once connected intimately to the power source for life, we now face certain death in our fallen world.
Redemption
The longest chapter in the story of God is redemption—about how God began redeeming and restoring his prized creatures. This story includes ancient covenants, the 10 Commandments, David & Goliath, and much more. But it culminates in the character of Jesus. Jesus, God himself,
demonstrated how God would rather experience the death we deserved than let go of his people. The redemption chapter is the climax of the story—God’s relentless pursuit of his people at the expense of his own life.
Restoration
This chapter is still being written, though the previous chapter plays the spoiler and tells us how it all works out. The final chapter is basically this: what God has set in motion through the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and through the gift of the Holy Spirit, will finally, one great day, be fully realized.

Reasons for What We Do

Our three pastors had the opportunity to interview candidates for baptism last night. We heard stories. These stories are the reason that we have church. One person told us that they came to The Bridge actively seeking more relationship with God. God showed up. He blew her away. She has repented and believed the Gospel in a way that she did not realize existed. God has moved her to levels of love for Himself beyond her wildest dreams. She wants to express the death to self that has happened to a new creation in the Gospel. Another person told a story of having been involved in church as a teen, followed by years of rebellion, followed by God visiting during the Alpha retreat and removing the veil. She has repented and believed the Gospel. She is going to publicly profess her full faith in the Messiah, Jesus Christ in baptism. The third young lady told us a story of having never gone to church and begrudgingly coming to The Bridge in May and liking the music and being intrigued with the videos. So, she returned and two weeks later, she described what happened to her as, "I felt my heart get cut." "I was changed at that moment and I cannot shut up about Him. I want to shout IT from the mountaintops." She was regenerated and repented and believed the Gospel. We will celebrate that on January 24 in baptism. Can you picture that? People were stumbling along lost, God acted, the people responded and now people who were headed for judgment are now headed to heaven. That is why we do what we do; to God be the glory.

Then, today I got to have coffee and lunch with a young man whose life is in shambles. He has lost everything -- his job, his wife, his four kids, and on and on. There is nothing right -- quote, "I have no reason to leave this coffee shop. I have nothing -- no purpose." The reason that I was sitting with this young man is that he had called me and wanted to talk about his malady. How did he know me? On the Sunday of our Christmas services, I picked him up walking along the road in front of E-Hall because his wife has left him to walk from the Desloge Wal-Mart. As I took him to his truck in Farmington, I shared that God, through his Gospel, cared a lot about people just like him. I gave him my phone number doubting that I would ever hear from him. I did. He called and I feel God moving in the life of this 28-year-old father of four who feels like he is at the bottom of the barrel. I think we will see him and the 4 kids for Family Worship on Sunday. Pray for him. To God be the glory for giving us purpose.