Tapestry of Hope

Happy Easter 2011!

Casey Hobbs asks if love is an emotion, what emotions are good for, and how we can understand what the Bible means when it says that God is love.

It's plausible, but is it right?

Colossians 1:21-22.

Tonight we see Jesus take on The New Age Movement. Nothing really symbolizes this current stream of gnosticism - the same false teaching that Paul was taking on in his letter to the Colossians - like things like The Secret, Eckhart Tolle and Oprah. The problem is that you can not fix yourself. You can not meet your needs. You can not even surrender if he doesn’t allow you. This is all diametrically opposed to Scripture, the written word of God. So let’s take a look...

So what do you need besides Jesus? For peace, well being and happiness in this world, what do we need? What do YOU need? According to this gentleman, Abraham Maslow, you need many things to survive in this world. He ranked these needs in a chart - anyone who took a basic psych class knows this chart - it is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. But Paul counters all of this in Colossians 1. He used the gnostics' favorite word - fullness and modified it with the word all. It’s like “I’ll see your fullness and raise you ALL fullness.”

Colossians 1 prayer

Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if life as a Christian were that easy? Read it, do it. Good. But there’s a problem with all of this, right? It’s us. It doesn’t matter how much sense it makes. It doesn’t matter how right it is. If we think we know better, screw you. That’s why this text exposes an important issue for Gospel community. I like to call it Less NOT Ish. It is really important and it is firmly ensconced within our passage tonight.

I’ve had a good bit of response from you since our look at Step 11 last week, and this has been the heart’s cry of that response - I don’t know how to pray. Many have admitted giving a fly-by to step 11, and not knowing how to really engage it. In a letter (40 pages long!) Luther shares his own struggles with prayer being cold and recommends a structure he calls his four strand garland.

Who is baffled by prayer and meditation? It is one of the more surprising and baffling things of the Christian walk to so many - especially people of recovery. Little else has created more cheesy Christian art, or pictures of hands than prayer. Prayer and meditation is elusive to many of us - why do you think that is? We don't get the picture.

What happens when you get completely swept away by your own pride and completely ruin a dream for someone else and everyone is thrown into outrage? What is an amends? What is a proper form of apology? Are you a peacekeeper or a peacemaker?

Ephesians 1 sermon. What does it mean to be adopted by our Father in heaven?