Preacher: Mike McFadden

God has given me.

Two things back to back to lighten the mood before I get up here and talk last week my father butchered a song that he sung one hundred times and this week one of my sons had his hands firmly placed right down the front of his pants while games trying to.

Shall we.

Who taught that parenting class last semester.

Let’s pray Heavenly Father.

Said that you be with us in this time.

I have no interest in saying the words of my own agenda but the words that you’ve given me speak to us through your word and through your awesome creation we pray the scenes in your son’s name Amen. So this is week two I’m ready for Josh to be back and I’m ready for Josh to be back it was it’s been honor and a humbling experience to prepare to sermons for the congregation that I love the last two weeks. But I’m ready for him to be back. Last week we got a chance to focus on our tendency to pass out blame how since creation we’ve. Pointed the rugged finger of blame at others even to God or creator.

Even when sometimes the blame really is just a byproduct of how creation works and hopefully through our discussion last week you took away a few new perspectives on how to be avoided blaming God for certain situations or circumstances that you find yourself in maybe you got yourself in first that God is completely sovereign.

There is nothing that happens that is not totally and completely part of his ordained will.

And second that test will come God uses those tests and sometimes even gives you those tests in order to refine us he removes impurities through the tests. And he shapes us to the person that he wants us to be and then finally that we are responsible we have a responsibility we have a response ability the ability to respond and to control our reactions to the circumstances we find ourselves in and that God while He may test you never does tempt you we read that from from James so this week we’re moving on from our tendency to pass out blame We’re going to discuss our tendency to hold on to glory. And see to hold on to glory that is not ours and this is a much different approach when the addressing this in our lives it’s not as much of what we ought not to do but what we ought to do sometimes it’s easier to sit and listen to things about all we shouldn’t do that anymore and kind of eradicate that but when we have to talk about stuff that we ought to do and you have to start planning in prepping and actually change habits in order to act according to what God calls us to do it’s a different approach I want to start with reading in dissecting this verse from Romans it didn’t fall out of my pocket this week at and see if we’ve got it here Romans Chapter five six three you can read along in your bible your phone up on the screen Romans five six through eight you see just at the right time when we were still powerless Christ died for the.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die But God demonstrates His own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died for us

and I point out this verse because this verse is talking about grace not worthiness we are loved by God and He showed that in the most perfect and profound way we are loved by God but we are not worthy of God’s love that’s why it’s called Grace because when it was not deserved We got it anyway and so we’re going to start this discussion thinking about how we are not to hold on the glory we’ve got to first realize that we’re not holding onto any worthiness that we may feel we should hold on the worthiness that we feel but we hold on to the grace that we feel through God’s love.

When we’re talking about giving God glory or bringing God glory I know that can be intimidating sometimes seems like seems like such a high calling task that we could easily fail or do it wrong we don’t want people looking at us and that pressure that cause us to look at us and make that their perspective of who God is that’s scary that’s intimidating.

I don’t want the pressure of that and that’s because we’re thinking about bringing God glory like our platform I want to show this picture to you and see if this platform

who’s that Tim Thibeault.

And you talk about a guy who made the most out of his platform but that’s intimidating think about how we need to bring God glory like Tim Thibeault did.

When we start making the most of our platform we can get scared or scared to think about we might mess that up and the problem is usually when we finally gain the courage to address our platform or make the most out of that it starts becoming we start we start remembering all the results of our spiritual gift tests and they start running through our heads about bringing God glory and then it becomes an achievement that we try to strive for like if we find something that we’re really good at that people will recognize us and then we get the opportunity to say oh it’s not me it’s God and then they say ah he’s such a great guy or girl giving credit for God really yeah we are and then and then and then we miss it and his the fact that when we’re focusing on our platform and trying to figure out what we do best we can easily miss the mark and I’m not marking twenty but we are not going to go I think you did a great job but I’m not going to try and talk about our platform today I want to talk about where I think I want to start we’re where I think God starts in US

has given God glory is not a result issue it’s a heart issue and so tonight today tonight we’re going to focus on giving God glory in our own life I think if you focus on your platform we’re trying to bring God to glory but you cannot bring him glory in this world without first giving him glory in your own life so that’s what we’re going to focus on today.

Again like last week I’m going to try and just touch on a few simple things a short perspective change that can hopefully take us from knowing how great he is to giving him the glory that he deserves and first want to talk about giving God glory in our all because he is an awesome God

I heard that the Milky Way looks a lot like a pancake that’s not enough here that’s my breakfast.

A pancake obviously on a much smaller scale and you see this

I’ve got a picture or two of our galaxy sub that’s kind of a pancake of the big bulge in the middle yet all the pits in different colors represent all the different stars that are in our galaxy.

If the pancake was ten inches in diameter This is a little shy but if it was that represented our galaxy it would not be possible with the human eye to even make out a speck that would represent our solar system not our earth or our sun but our entire solar system you would not even be able to see with the human eye a speck that would represent our solar system on this pancake

they say that it would take a hundred thousand light years to travel from this side of our Milky Way galaxy to the other side one hundred thousand light years

now there might be some of you that know how fast the speed of light is but I don’t think Kenton born is going to speak up so I’ll tell you.

The speed of light the speed of light is traveling at one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second. That number is so big it’s so great I’m going to try and break it down to what we what we can see or visualize that means that one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second and our earth is twenty four thousand nine hundred and one very specific miles around the circumference of the Earth twenty four thousand nine hundred and one it would take a ray of light or a of like could go around the earth seven and a half times in one second traveling at one hundred eighty six thousand miles per hour and traveling at one hundred eighty six thousand miles per hour it would take one hundred thousand years just to travel from this side of our Milky Way galaxy to that side

this year is a Milky Way galaxy not a pancake

one hundred thousand years to travel from one side of the other and that’s just our one puny little galaxy

when I was doing some research on this I found out that our one puny little galaxy called the Milky Way is somewhere is just one of either one to two hundred billion other galaxies way to go astronomers from marrying that down somewhere within one hundred billion they’ve narrowed

one to two hundred billion other galaxies in fact when you look up at the night sky and you see all of the stars you were only able to see the stars in our galaxy every other thing every other speck of light that you see outside of the Milky Way is actually another galaxy full of hundreds of billions of stars or clusters of galaxies

and then we have a tendency to scoff at technology sometimes and say the technology’s what’s wrong with the world but I tell you as technology continues to increase and we get to see the night sky.

You have you have a problem on your hands because it continues to get bigger and bigger and guess what they’ve discovered now we might have known this already it didn’t all start from one place. And expand and with technology as they look out of the night sky now they can tell that galaxies are actually going in different directions from each other maybe there’s multiple big brains now science trying to trying to wrestle with course the.

Voyager one which left Earth in one nine hundred seventy two is traveling at the speed of thirty eight thousand miles per hour it’s now eleven point seven billion miles away and just recently left our solar system

and.

It amazes me how we can think we are big

songs one nineteen I’m sorry one thousand one says

The heavens declare the glory of God in the skies proclaim the work of his hands the heavens declare the glory of God in the skies proclaim the work of his hands last week we spent some time reading two or three verses about the greatness of God and we can stand here or think about how great God is and God like know all that my heavens do that for me

you serve an amazing great in the large God you ever thought about D.N.A.

I have a picture of D.N.A. I think I do well there you are.

You know anything that comes from our body anything that comes from our body has our D.N.A. on it it has or our cooties on it.

And I always used to think about D.N.A. in an improper way I always used to think about D.N.A. like this this is from my truck this is an owner’s manual and I always used to think about D.N.A. this way in an owner’s manual you can see. Where they are in the how to do and the capacities of this and the total ratings of that this is an owner’s manual it tells about the thing that is already created and that’s how I thought about D.N.A. thought about D.N.A. Maybe because I watch T.V. a little too much.

That you better be careful about D.N.A. because it can tell somebody who you are right like in the crime scene like they could narrow it down if you if you leave your D.N.A. somewhere and they find out that you were a brunette with failing eyesight. And have the only person in your family with enough rhythm to play the drums they narrow it down a nuff to find out that it’s you don’t leave your D.N.A. Don’t leave your owner’s manual somewhere else to be able to tell who you were but that’s not actually how D.N.A. works at all

D.N.A. is more like this

is it from my sons

these are Lego instructions

what I found out is that D.N.A. is not a proof of who you are but it’s the code that tells cells exactly how they are to replicate themselves and make who you are

it’s an instruction manual and it corrects itself through D.N.A. through all these billions of little strains that are your D.N.A. There’s actually enzymes that they travel up and down the in the strands of D.N.A. And if there’s something wrong it corrects itself because it knows who you are supposed to be

and amazing

this is a really big problem.

For atheists or scientists to believe we originated from nothing because D.N.A. is not the proof that we the we are something D.N.A. is rather the incredibly complex instructions on how to create something it points to evidence that we were created from an intelligent being.

We serve God that is much bigger than we can possibly imagine.

And in our insignificance compared to creation we are so perfectly and specifically individually made down to this smallest molecules in cells of our body

so when we talk about one way to not hold on to glory we can do that by our hour all on how amazing God is. I spent the last week and a half I’ve watched probably fifty youtube videos on galaxies and and such and it’s just it’s shaped a new sense of myself and my role here on this earth and I’ve just seen this play out in the way I just challenge you in the morning time start with thinking about how big God is and you will shape the glory that you give him a second one to talk about giving God glory in our prayer life I think it’s possible how we approach our prayers to God is more important than what we say. We have some we have some instructions on what to say in scripture or he did the Psalms

on how we are to pray first Luke eighteen Luke eighteen ten through fourteen

two men went up to the temple to pray one affair see in the other a tax collector affairs he stood by himself and prayed God I think you that I’m not like other people robbers evil doers adulterers or even like that tax collector I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.

The tax collector stood at a distance he would not even look up to heaven but he beat his breast and said God have mercy on me a sinner and I tell you that this man rather than the other went home justified before God for all those who exalt him self will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted another passage on prayer sure you’re familiar Matthew six nine three thirteen that’s the six nine hundred thirteen this is the Lord’s prayer he says this then is how you should pray our Father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done On earth as it is in heaven give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one

and we think about these two verses these passages on prayer and I see humility I see reverence and I see an intimacy with God.

Makes me think about prayer that I hear in my house a lot sometimes we’ll take turns and let some of my kids say a prayer I want to recites to you live prayer that my son Gibson the one who had a lot of trouble this morning.

When he says this is almost every time it’s his turn to prayer to your Jesus tank you for the Lord thank you for mommy and daddy and started it and Clarke and Davey himself a men

he still can’t pronounce Charlotte.

And it’s so cute There’s nothing wrong with this prayer but what if that person never changes

and not just the words but what about the intimacy with God What if that never changes and I wonder if that’s kind of what my prayer like is like sometimes it’s a recites Haitian it’s routine

I think it can get that way sometimes because you know I can say a good prayer without really thinking about the words anybody else

I can say a pretty good pro without even thinking about the words and especially not thinking about who it is that I’m talking to I think it’s because I’ve got out of the practice of really focusing on God the creator of the universe that huge galaxy in that small D.N.A. that I’m literally standing before Him in His presence speaking to him.

And sometimes when we prairie pray we can disclose our eyes and just just think about how we’re kind of just praying to the air

and we’re not

we’re not a person to be with humility and reverence and it should have a sense of intimacy think about a verse we read last week first Timothy six fifteen First Timothy six fifteen God bless it and only ruler of the King of Kings in the Lord of Lords who alone is a mortal and who lives in in approachable light whom no one has seen or can see to him the honor and might for ever amen the well the times that I’ve had an interviewer I’ve been looking forward to meeting someone really important and all of the stress and all of the preparation that it takes to approach that person and speak to them.

And we read this verse and we think about how great God is and it’s like should we just should we approach that casually.

I don’t I don’t think so

let’s try and give God more glory in our reverent approach in our prayers

in the third perspective change that we can do in order to give God glory

forgiving others

we can give God a glory in forgiving those who might have hurt us or done something that we didn’t like seasons four thirty two might have this verse memorized it for thirty two Be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you

and you might have committed to memory become to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another because they admitted they were wrong

it doesn’t say that

maybe maybe they’ll try again forgiving one another because enough time has passed and bitterness isn’t working.

I guess out of for you. Then say that either about this forgiving one another because God tells us to forgive

true that’s still not what the verses maybe wondering how does forgiving one another bring glory to God we’ll think about this I don’t believe we possess the power the ability to forgive anyone apart from the power of God The closest thing to forgiveness that the secular world something apart from God gives us is I’ll forgive but I won’t forget it

which is basically saying I’m done being matter casting punishment to you but our relationship will never be the same

and that’s not forgiveness that scripture talks about

see the Bible talks about forgiveness constantly it’s mentioned in scripture one hundred forty one times but never apart from the power to forgive

and that’s how we give God the glory.

By recognizing we need him to restore not only our relationship with him but our relationship with others

and we shift to thinking about not what we did or whatever our friends or neighbors or stranger did but we forgive because it’s based upon the forgiveness that God gave us

here’s the gotcha if you’re having trouble forgiving someone.

It’s because if it’s because you haven’t asked God to do it for you

and I really believe that that’s how we can give God the glory and running out of time but let’s work on a few things from last week and this week let’s let’s avoid passing out blame and avoid holding on to glory. And spend some time each day in awe and reverence of who God is how great he is how perfect his creation is and how perfectly specific and wonderfully he made each one of us so approach God in our prayer life with the proper reverence and humility that he deserves

Let’s forgive each other and get ourselves out of the way and focus on what God did for us because he forgave us and that’s pretty.

Lord you are beautiful and perfect and great

believe that you created everything in its place in in time you created us and you made us wonderfully specific think about even the smallest cell that makes up who we are and that was programmed to make us do exactly and be exactly the person that we are made to be just as you give us the courage to approach life with that slow our tasks in our distractions down so we can give you the proper reverence that we need

and Lord for all of the hurts and pain that we are still struggling with or we need you to help us and take over our bitterness and forgive each other

and pray all these things in your son’s name in it.