Below are the notes about the message preached tonight at 12two. The content is bascially exploring the pathways that we each can walk to step into the presence of God.
To download the audio of the message click here.
CONTEMPLATIVE PATHWAY
Deep people – not noisy, life of party
Deep thinkers, deep feelers
Flower – ‘not just a flower’ – marvelling
People’s words – sit with them and ponder
They Love time alone with God: Bible, journal, notepad, CD.
Send them off for a week and you may never see them again.
Feel for people very deeply.
Concerned about the things you and I dismiss
Listen to the news and are horrified and tormented.
Often our social conscience.
CS Lewis was someone who walked this pathway a lot.
Offreed deep thoughts and reflections.
Contemplatives:
They write the deep books about faith.
They compose the great songs that connect us to God’s heart
ME: need to retreat at time. Collect my thoughts. Refuel my spirit. Centre myself
Valuable – but if I stay there I go crazy!
Jesus often walked this pathway.
Mk 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
The contemplative pathway offers a space where you can be with God.
ARTS PATHWAY
Music, instrument, dancing, Drawing, writing, painting
Expression that connects with God
David Dancing – 2 Sam 6:12-15
2Sa 6:12 Now King David was told, “The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
Ac 16:25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.
All the way through the Bible
This is primarily some of your pathway... Struggle since no music. Struggled before, because it was just music. But God is changing something in us now, opening our eyes.
RELATIONAL PATHWAY
People who walk – God shows up through time spent with other people
Offered a silent retreat – do anything to escape
Given a book – you’d rather talk to someone about it
Walk in creation – worth it if a friend came along.
“I sought my soul—but my soul eluded me; I sought my God—but my God eluded me; I sought my brother—and found all three.”
Spiritually flourish when they are around like minded spiritual people.
Jn 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. Jn 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
Jn 15:17 This is my command: Love each other.
Jesus used his interactions with others to have a God moment. Learnt Healthy for me to have time alone.
CREATION PATHWAY
In Creation = in the presence of God: Wonder of God – captivating
Bushwalk is more than a walk
Gecko is more than a noisy pest stuck to your sealing, very hard to catch
Sunset is more than a ridiculously early morning.
Fishing is more than an empty pointless and frustrating experience.
In Creation when you are able to walk this pathway, God becomes both closer and clearer.
Mk 4:35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” Mk 4:39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
SERVING PATHWAY
For some of you, if the opportunity to serve was taken away you would shrivel up and die spiritually. Live to feel God’s smile and appreciation when they help someone else.
Mother Teresa: It happened once, when the Congregation of the Missionary Brothers of Charity was first established, that a young Brother came to me and said, "Mother, I have a special call to work with the lepers. I want to give my life to them, my whole being. Nothing attracts me more than that." I know for a fact that he truly loved those afflicted with leprosy. I, in turn, answered him, "I think that you are somewhat wrong, Brother. Our vocation consists in belonging to Jesus. The work is nothing but a means to express our love for him. The work in itself is not important. What is important is for you to belong to Jesus and he is the one who offers you the means to express that belonging."
She once said “I feel most alive in Christ when I’m holding a dying person.”
There is something of God that can be found in service
God was in that serving experience.
Jesus feet washing: Something beautiful, gracious, humbling about serving another person which causes us to know more about who Jesus is..
INTELECTUAL PATHWAY
Crave the mental wrestle à new insights
Church worth it, when they are challenged to think.
Books that provoke new thoughts
Thrive on deep conversation
Shape and provide our theology ‘our thinking about God’
If this is your primary pathway – mainly where your spiritual breakthroughs happen.
Heart cannot engage until their mind is convinced.
Lk 2:43 After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.
Some of you who have huge questions and are searching for answers, may need to find someone who is familiar with this pathway and walk it for a while.
ACTIVISTIC PATHWAY
Spiritual best – 1000 kmh, White knuckle, Full tilt, Out of breath, Waiting for God to show up at the last minute, as your hanging out there in the breeze... People who walk this path, actually run it!
End of the day when your spent emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically – sense today was a good day! Task become maintaining a level of kingdom engagement that’s challenging.
This is my primary pathway. But for me not to go insane And not burn outI need to make sure I walk other pathways.Balance is the key.
Jesus balanced it so well.
Moved from town to town – constantly. But found time to sit and be still with God
He met with the crowds constantly, but made sure he spent time 1 on 1.
Perhaps the clearest expression of his activism was shown in the last few days of his life.
Lk 22:39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Garden arrest - Rman trial - Jewish trial - Walked with the cross
“he stayed the course” Something in him although weak and tired and hurt, pushed him to continue.
He was walking the atavistic pathway. Which resulted in his death.
For us to be able to walk these pathways to God for free and be met by God, the price of our spiritual freedom had to be paid. It could only be paid with a life. Our life or God’s life.
And God chose that it would be his life, so that it wouldn’t have to be ours.
CONCLUSION
So I give you this thinking, not to lock you in to one way, but for you to be able to connect with God in a fresh way.
Some of these will resonate in your spirit. Others will turn you off. But each of you are different and tonight there may have been something that you can take away form here and pursue this week.
Also want to recognise that what you might be passionate about, may be what God has given to you to use as a pathway to him: Instrument, sport, ability to write or draw, relate to people, solve problems.
Communion is the gateway of all these pathways.
Communion is the result of travelling these pathways and arriving at God’s dining room table.
And joining together for a meal.
And so Jesus connected the path we walk with him.
That each of the pathways we’ve spoken of, are captured in this meal.
I hate reading your stuff it reminds me how much I miss your teaching. Do they know how lucky they are up there?
Posted by: Veronica | October 06, 2008 at 09:59 PM