Worship
Sermon Teachings
8:30 am Service – Teaching Notes – 5/2/10
{The full Teaching is available on an audio feed through the WPC Website}
• The Human Reality: we all make mistakes
Living and acting without love
Making a poor or bad choice
Playing God
Too much piety, too little loving kindness
Playing the worldly card – not just wine, women (or Chippendales,) and song – it can be greed, indifference, over-indulgence, self-indulgence, living full speed ahead “don't-give-a-damn” (That is: the unwillingness or failure to ask and answer the question of the consequences), and relationships I – it rather than I – Thou; the person becomes a thing, an object, not a being!
• Inner Critic: You didn't do it right --- again, you didn't do enough, you are not good enough, there's something wrong with you. Mistakes do NOT make us bad persons!
• Sin = Separation from God, Separation from Self, Separation from another. Sin = separation = death.
âˆWe are not talking about evil acts of betrayal,
destruction, or hatred. Just the things we do that
are a mess-up -- (consciously and unconsciously,
commission and omission).
âˆSense in which these separations fill an emptiness in us.
âˆSense in which sin and separation are self-deceptions.
âˆSeparation into death is not something to be punished
but something to be healed into wholeness.
Psalm 51:1-4, 6-11
Be merciful to me, O God, because of your constant love. Because of your great mercy wash away all my wrongdoing and all of my guilt. I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my wrongdoing. I have sinned against you, and you alone – I have done what you consider to be evil….
Indeed you love it when I tell the truth in my heart; fill my mind with your wisdom. Remove my sin and I will be clean; wash me and I'll be whiter than snow. Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness, for you take away the thrill of wrongdoing. A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast, new, and loyal heart in me. Do not banish me from your presence or take away your holy spirit from me.
Romans 6:2b, 12-14, 22-23
If we've left the country were sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? It's like this: In baptism we went under the water and left our old country behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace – a new life in a new land!...
That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected to the old way of life. Throw yourself wholeheartedly and full time – remember, you've been raised from the dead -- into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live… you're living in the freedom of God….
But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, you have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you how to live. A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more life on the way! Work hard for sin and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life and eternal life, delivered by Jesus our Lord.
• Fix it: wake up and pay attention, recognize the mistake or wrong-doing, tell yourself the truth make amends: apologize and ask forgiveness; restore what was taken or lost; get back into RIGHT RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, SELF, AND OTHERS!
There is no intention in God that we place others in bondage and oppress them with our mistakes and separations.
Likewise, there is no intention in God that when there is an authentic apology and request for forgiveness, we withhold that gift which sets the other free of their interior toxic waste.
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The “Oops” Factor
10 am Service, 5/2/10, All Church (Grades 3-12)
Nicole Trotter and Doug Huneke
Did you know that all of the great characters in the Bible made mistakes, things that hurt the feelings of another person or maybe even hurt them physically, things that were wrong – sometimes by accident, or without thinking, or they chose to do things they knew they were not supposed to do. Think about it: King David, Adam and Eve, Cain, Moses, Esau, Jeremiah, Abraham, Aaron, and sometime the whole Israelite nation. In the Christian Testament St. Paul, John the Baptist, and once or twice even Jesus, and many other people tried to hide their mistakes and hurtful behaviors, and lots of them came to Jesus with sad hearts because they felt guilty about a mistake, but Jesus showed them a way to ask forgiveness, do better, and not repeat their mistakes.
Nicole, I don't make mistakes. You certainly don't make mistakes and, well, grown-ups are too smart and they're older so they don't do things wrong! Right?
WRONG! I DOOO make mistakes. I make soooo many mistakes that I'm sure I've made them even when I haven't! Which is just another mistake! Everyone , Pastor Doug,– grown-ups, children, and youth -- make mistakes but that does not mean we are bad people.
You're right, but mistakes are not the end of the world, because we can fix our mistakes.
I went to Bel Aire's Open house a few weeks ago and I saw a sign on one of the walls that said… “Mistakes are welcome here” Imagine that! Not, Mistakes are just ok, or mistakes are ok sometimes or even try not to make mistakes. The sign said mistakes are welcome. That sounds to me like making mistakes are encouraged, even a good thing. WHY do you think that is?
That's right. Mistakes are how we learn. Even babies know this. Have you ever seen a baby hit themselves in the eye? At first they do that and they don't know what hit them and then they do it again and again until the neurons in the brain connect and they realize they are making it happen and it doesn't feel good so they stop. Or we hope they do. The really good thing about mistakes is they help you learn important lessons about how to act, how to treat others, and how to care for yourself.
God knew from the start that people had to be free to try things, goof, and that they could learn from their mistakes. God didn't expect kids and grown-ups to get everything right all the time. Now, to be sure, God doesn't want us to hurt feelings, or hit, or say bad things to or about them, or steal, tell lies, or cause trouble.
And, God also did not want us to always feel bad when we did something wrong because we really are not bad people, so God and Jesus help us move from sadness about a mistake to forgiveness to trying very hard to think before we do things that are not right.
I like to think about what Charlotte said this week about M&M's. There was a pack of them on the counter that I brought home for me. And she said, “save me all the green ones” and I said “why just the green ones?” and she said “because they are good luck and will make everything in my life go perfect!” Except, she continued, on Wednesdays I won't do that because if EVERY day were perfect than I would never learn anything and grow.” I thought that was very wise for a ten-year old person. I hope she learned it from me or in our family, if we are that wise, or maybe in Sunday school.
Nicole, I remember when I was about 10 and wanted to help my mom with the laundry. I threw the clothes in along with my new red shirt and lo and behold(!) all my dad's white Jockey shorts came back pink! I remember when my friends and I picked on some kids at school and the teacher told us we hurt their feelings – I felt bad – and she told us to apologize, we did and I felt so much better, because inside my head I knew picking on them was not the right thing to do.
There is a wonderful saying -- The words are on the bulletin cover so you can take them home and pin them up on the family bulletin board -- that I'd like you to say with me: “Tomorrow is the gift God gives us tomorrow to learn from the mistakes we make today.”
Those words mean that you really must try to get it right. Try to make good choices. But if you get it wrong, or if you make a mistake you are not a bad person, God is right there with you, God wants you to be free of guilt and sadness because you goofed up. God is patient and gives you tomorrow so you can live free of guilt and happy.
How does God help us with our mistakes? God's son Jesus showed you and me how to go to someone we hurt and to say something like, “I am really sorry I hit you, or yelled at you, or made you feel bad, or stole something from you, or lied to you,” or whatever you did. You say, “I apologize and I hope you will forgive me. I won't do that to you again.”
Forgiving others is as important as forgiving yourself. We came up with an acronym cause there aren't enough of those here at WPC. The letters spell “Mistakes” and it goes like this.
M is for a mistake, I have made that hurt you
I is for how I feel when you hurt me.
S is for how sorry I am that I hurt you.
T is for taking a breath and knowing you are truly sorry
A is asking that you forgive me
K is knowing that I, too, make mistakes and would want to be forgiven if the shoe were on the other foot
E is for the everlasting love that God has for us even when we make
mistakes
S is for feeling safe here in this church and you are always loved just the way you are, mistakes and all.
Tomorrow is the gift God gives us to learn from the mistakes we make today!
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