Living Worthy… Bottom Line

Today is the first Sunday of a new year. I like new years because new years are a time for reevaluation; a time to think back and a time to think forward; a time to take measure of who we are; a time to reflect on what might be.  A new year is a time to dream.  That is what I want to challenge you to do this morning, to dream.  But I must put a disclaimer on it.  Dreams may be dangerous.  Good things begin as dreams, but bad things often begin as dreams as well.  Typically, the painfulness of changing who you are begins with a dream of what might be.  So, be warned, dreams may be dangerous.

This morning I want to dream.  This morning I want to challenge us to think beyond ourselves.  This morning I want to double-dog dare you to escape the “we can’t do that” kind of thinking and dream a big dream of what we can be. 

Here is the dream; what if we could make a difference.  What if we could be something spectacular?  What if we could really be who God intended us to be? What if we really brought God glory?  What if we were who God wanted us to be?  What if we used the gifts God has given us to be who we are designed to be? What if you were a hero?

I love good hero movies.  Do you know what I mean?  Big movies; against overwhelming odds, with really good, bad guys and brave heroes, who overcome great obstacles to beat the bad guy end up in glory.  Movies like:

That is what I want us to dream about.  I want you to catch a vision of yourself as Frodo.  Can you see yourself as a hero?  I want you to realize that you are not only important, you are crucial to the outcome.  Your life could be written into a script to make an epic movie; Tim’s life as an epic movie.  “Surely, you are kidding? My insignificant life in a movie?  There’s one you can wait until it’s out on DVD to see and then don’t.”  That is the kind of thinking we have to change.  We have to learn to dream of ourselves as crucial to God’s glory.  We have to learn to live worthy.

Ephesians 4:1  I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

This year I want us to dream about living up to the potential, the expectation; the glory of God! Living worthy of our calling! But be forewarned; Dreaming could be hazardous to your health.

Does anyone recognize these words?  Anyone remember that the words I just spoke were from the first sermon of 2006?  That was the challenge I began with last year. That was the first sermon on Living Worthy.  I preach them again, this morning, as a way to reflect on the past year.  I guess the question I am asking this morning is, have we learned to dream any bigger?  Has the concept of living worthy made a difference in your life?  Do you see yourself as a hero of God living up to a hero’s glory?  Is your life that epic movie of God working to confront evil in this world and being victorious?  Do you dream any bigger as a result of our discussions in Living Worthy?  Are you a hero?
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This morning I want to conclude our theme of living worthy.  What does it mean to live worthy?  “Bottom line it for me, Tim?”  “Let’s just cut to the chase.” “Tell me where the rubber meets the road?” “If you could say it all in one sentence what would it be?”

Well, let’s work up to that sentence.  Let’s begin by going back to our key verse; the one we started the year with.  Then let’s work through the significant thoughts of 2006.  At the end of a year you see the TOP songs of 2006, TOP news stories, TOP deaths of 2006… Here are the TIM’S TOP sermons of 2006.   

Ephesians 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 

We are all called with 5 callings: (1) Salvation, (2) Fellowship, (3) To be who we are designed to be, (4) Special missions from the Spirit, (5) Eternal life.  God has done so much for us- Crymannetly he has done so much – We are called to give it our best shot.  We are called to live worthy. 

Ephesians 4:2  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 

We are not poodles. We are warriors.  Every warrior has great weapons.  Frodo has Sting, Luke as his father’s light saber, Neo has “Guns lots of guns.”  Our weapons, the names of our swords, are humility, gentleness, patience, love.  Consider the power of being gentle, the soft reply, the kind word, the warm touch – not only defeats our enemies it turns them into allies.  God does things backwards.  God’s warriors work backwards.  We don’t destroy the bad guys they turn them into good guys.  Anyone can pull a trigger but God’s warriors pull heart strings.  Our weapons are the humble spirit, the gentle touch, the patient persistence, bearing with one another in Love. 

Ephesians 4:3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 

God’s army must be united to be victorious. We must keep the unity of all those who are called to be his warriors.  In our discussions on unity we discussed not throwing darts.  Tone of voice dart, kibitzing, teasing, gossipy, angry, intentional, internal, nagging, lying, manipulating, thankless, obscenity, bickering.  These darts destroy our motivation and kill unity.  We instead use our weapons…?

Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called--  one Lord, one faith, one baptism;  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Instead of throwing darts we united under the seven ones.  These are the core doctrines which bring us together, which we die for.  These are the essential nature of who we are.  It is not uniformity, nor union, we are called to unity, based on these seven. 

At this point in our study of living worthy I began several sub-series.  We did a series on the Spirit – conclusion is we live in the intersection of two realms – Heaven and earth – here is where we worship, here is where we derive our power, here is where we pray, here is where we are conformed to Jesus, here is where we live as conquerors. 
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It was along in here that the Spirit led us astray from the seven ones and led us to a series on Transformation.  Let me run through the high points of this sub-series.  This series captured the heart of living worthy.

®God has a picture on his huge refrigerator in the sky of who he wants us to be.
®Transformation begins by being authentic – Romans 12:9 – Let love be genuine.
®Escalating stories – stop by being authentic\
®Changed the metaphor of relationships from money to being.
®Hats – git-r-done – harm our relationships with the wrong hats
®Then we got to the heart of transformation – empty-filled process.  Empty is not being conformed to my patterns and filled is being conformed to God’s will for who we are.  We discussed thoroughly the Route 44 Cherry Limeade metaphor.
®Then we spent several weeks on listening and speaking.  Listening to the Spirit and speaking words for God. Listening to others and speaking words to make others real. 
®Then there was the Soup Line. – There is no line – We gain worthiness from God not from others.  This is a transformational thought.  Instead of trying to get ahead of others – we instead are thankful – thanksgiving moves us from the line. 
®A couple of weeks ago we discovered growing in living worthy is a slope, a Ah Ha, a two step forward one backward because of Satan and is really a cycle of empty and filled. 

That is a bunch of thoughts.  But that brings us up to the present and our question that we began with, “Bottom line it for me Tim.”  Give it to me in one line.   I guess the best I can do is to read the next verse in our theme passage. Now the next verse bottom lines it:

Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

Wow! Read it again.  Read it from a different version. 

NLT Ephesians 4:7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift according to the generosity of Christ.

Does that sound like a bottom line to you? 

All heroes have special gifts.  They have hidden abilities and secret powers.  They are not what they seem.  There is more to them than meets the eye. Frodo’s gift was resiliency.  He was tough.  Luke’s gift was the force.  Neo was the chosen one – see the matrix.  The kids in Narnia each had special gifts.  It is the same with us.  We, each, have been given a special gift.  Christ, the generous one, has given you a gift.  Do you believe it?  Are you special?  Are you significant?  Are you God’s hero? 

Are you living worthy of the special gift?  “What does that mean?”  What do you do with gifts?  Let’s ask a kid – kid help – what did you do on Christmas when you got a gift?  You opened it and played with it!  That’s how we live worthy.  We open the special gifts God has given to us and we play with them!  We take our gifts and give God the glory by using them.  We become the hero God has designed us to be. 

That is the dangerous dream. We become a congregation of people who use their gifts for God’s glory.  I have been given a gift.  I am significant enough for Christ to grace me with a gift.  I must live worthy of the gift he has given me.  Isn’t that a powerful dream?  Let me read our bottom-line verse from the Message in context. 

MESSAGE Ephesians 4:7-13 Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is,

He climbed the high mountain,
He captured the enemy and seized the booty,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

It's true, is it not, that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gills. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

Which leads us to next year’s theme; we are going to study the Gospel of Luke.  We are going to study how to use the gifts God has given us.  The slogan of this year’s theme is, “Lord, I want to see.”