JR. Forasteros - November 13, 2011
TBA
In witnessing the collapse of institutions Western culture has put our faith in for the last 500 years, we are despairing more and more as a society. Christians who are choosing to live in this world as Exiles, however, know that this is actually Good News because God is doing something new. We can feel the despair our culture feels as we mourn for the loss of what used to give us safety and security. But we can't stay there. We must choose to live by faith, to believe God's promises that This is Not the End!
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Exactly one week to the day after we got married, my wife Amanda and I moved to Dayton, OH. The next day, a Sunday, we started at our new church there. And then, as soon as church was over, we made that all-important pilgrimage many newlyweds make: IKEA.
We bought quite a few things for our new life together, but the crown jewel was a king-sized bed. It was so sweet – it had this headboard that looked like a park bench, was sleek and black.
Or rather, it was in the picture. Because, if you know IKEA, you know everything is sold “some assembly required”. Our bedroom in our new apartment was approximately 5 cm longer than the bed, which turned out to be a recipe for a pretty significant disaster.
Our marriage almost didn’t last 8 days.
By the time that bed was together, there was a hole in our wall (made by an errant bed piece, not a fist!) and we weren’t on speaking terms. It was bad.
IKEA furniture is famously hard to assemble – we’re far from the only couple who has experienced something similar. A big part of the challenge is that IKEA, being a Swedish company, makes their directions totally pictorial – no written instructions. To say they’re not very clear is an understatement.
We’re going to talk about the Bible today, and a lot of us think about the Bible somewhat like we do IKEA instructions. There might be a couple of things in there that are clear, but a lot of it seems confusing.
A lot of us have settled for a faith that’s a lot like the picture of IKEA furniture.
We know more or less what a faithful life should look like. But for some reason – maybe we’re intimidated or busy, we haven’t unboxed our faith and actually started to build a life of faith.
Let’s talk about what not just hearing God, but actually following looks like.
