Scripture: John 15:9-17; Philippians 4:4-7
Theme: Enjoying God
Title: Recess Time!
INTRO:
Grace and peace today from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
Over the last couple of weeks we have looked at the “Eraser of Forgiveness” and the “Math of Generosity”. This week I would like for us to look at another school related experience that I am sure most of us enjoyed and that is Recess.
Now, for a child growing up in Eastern Kentucky (some years back) recess was this amazing and wonderful time. Our recess time was usually spent outdoors – even in the winter time until it got down below 20 degrees.
I think my most favorite recess time happened while I was in the 3rd grade. We were old enough to enjoy the time and yet young enough to still have active imaginations. Recess was that time you could let your imagination take you to places that were amazing as you got with your friends to talk, to play a game or two or to just enjoy the sunshine.
Sometimes our third grade teacher would play a game with us. Instead of just watching us play, she would join in the game. It was always a lot of fun to watch her try to kick the ball or hit the softball. I realize that it was a different time than today, but I count myself fortunate to have grown up in a town where things were different.
Recess brought us together as a class. Not just with one another but with our teacher(s) as well. There is something about learning together, eating together and playing together that creates - Connection and Community.
Recess made us understand our teacher better. She became one of us – hitting the ball, running the bases and either leading her team to win or to lose. Either way, it was okay. There was something about having a teacher go from the classroom to the lunch room to the playground. Recess made us enjoy school that much more.
And that is what I want us to look at today. Much like recess we are to enjoy our church times together – whether we are in small groups learning more about Jesus, in a worship and praise setting, around a table eating food or enjoying one another’s company.
Somewhere along the line a lot of churches forgot how to enjoy God and one another.
+Church began to be more like being in a stuffy library having to make sure that you are ever so quiet.
+Church began to be more a place that you better straighten up and fly straight rather than just being free to celebrate and rejoice.
+Church began to be this place where you felt like you couldn’t breathe and that at any moment someone is going to give you a mean look or shake their finger at you.
Yes, it is true that we worship in reverence – but according to the Bible we can worship in holy reverence and dance at the same time. Think for a moment back to King David (2 Kings 6:14ff). And according to what we read this morning Jesus came to bring us joy – joy in our daily lives and in our community lives; which of course, includes being in Church.
So, let’s take a few moments this morning and think about the words Joy and Church. The words - Rejoice and Church. The words – Celebrate and Church. Let’s look at what it means to have a great time with God and with One Another.
I. We can have a great time with God because He is A Good God – Seeking to Create Communion with Himself and Us
It all starts with God. If we want to experience Communion and Community, it all begins and rests on God.
No matter how long we have served the LORD, we have to make sure that we keep our relationship up to date, our minds open and our hearts receptive. Because the more we do that the more we begin to see and experience the real God of the Bible – the Good God of Creation, Salvation and Sanctification.
We all for the most part serve our own concept of God. We serve what we know about God – how we feel about God – what we think we know about God.
For many people the concept that they have of God is someone who is to be feared at all cost – God is this Being, that is sitting up in Heaven who is for the most part mad at human beings.
I mean we messed up in the Garden. We messed up to cause the Flood. We messed up to cause the languages to be confused. We messed up and caused all those prophets to have to tell us that God was bringing judgment. We messed up in not accepting Jesus. We messed up by crucifying Jesus on the Cross. We just messed up and now God is in Heaven mad at us and the only reason He doesn’t destroy us is because Jesus took our punishment. God is mad. Jesus stepped in and the Holy Spirit is now at work being the peace maker.
The only thing wrong with ALL OF THAT IS, WELL - EVERYTHING.
We don’t serve a mad God. We don’t serve a God who is determined to get us when we do something wrong. God is not merely waiting to judge us, condemn us or send us to Hell. That may be the God that some people have concocted but that is not the God of Our Bible or the God who is the GREAT I AM.
The more you read the Bible and the more you spend time with God the more you become fully aware:
+How Good God Is
+How Strong God Is
+How Able God Is
+How much God Loves Us
+And How Much God Enjoys Life and Having a Great Time with All His Creation
We all know that Jesus is a perfect representation of the Holy Trinity.
-If we want to know What God the Father is like and Who God the Father is - then we need to read, study, talk to and spend time with Jesus.
-If we want to know What God the Holy Spirit is like and Who God the Holy Spirit is – then we need to read, study, talk to and spend time with Jesus.
Jesus is God in Flesh and when we read, study, commune with and spend time with Jesus we are spending time with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. They are Three in One.
And if we just take a small look around the Bible we can see that Jesus loved to be with people, have a great time and enjoying life. He loved to go to weddings, he loved to go to people’s home and eat a meal with them and he loved to spend time with people doing all kinds of things – walking, talking, fishing, working with wood, healing, rescuing and playing. He loved to spend time with children, watching them, walking beside them, talking to them and blessing them.
In the last 30 years or more there has been a revelation about Jesus. It is seen in picture after picture showing us a Jesus that is smiling, laughing and celebrating life. Bruce Marchiano, who played the part of Jesus in the film the Gospel of Matthew, shocked the world the number of times he portrayed Jesus smiling, laughing and having a great time.
I believe all too often we have meditated on the words – “a man of sorrows” and focused on the scene of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Sure, there were times that Jesus was sorrowful – how could He not be when He watched how our sins were destroying His world and our lives. And yes, it is true that the time in the Garden was a difficult time but we can’t label Jesus because of two events that happened while He was on our earth.
We need to have a balance. We need to see Jesus dancing at the Wedding of Cana. We need to see Jesus enjoying Himself as He walks on the water, feeds the 5,000 and heals the 10 lepers. We need to see Jesus after the Resurrection enjoying the fact that He walked through the closed doors to get to His disciples. He could have knocked. But He just appeared; walked through the door – I think Jesus enjoyed all of that.
And it’s not just Jesus. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit enjoyed each day of creation; they called it Good. That is to say they rejoiced over it. They were glad that they had made the Universe, the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. They were glad when they parted the waters and made the clouds and the oceans. They were glad when they made all the animals, the birds of the air and the fish of the seas. They were glad when they made man – in fact, the Bible says that they were very glad – that means they rejoiced – they laughed and had a great time creating everything; especially us.
Some of the ancient rabbis thought that along with God speaking the Universe, our world and mankind into existence, He did it not just with spoken words but He sang those words. That is to say the Holy Trinity sang Creation into existence – we could say that they were the first Great Trio of Singers.
You see, God is not pouting up in Heaven. He is not sitting there all red faced getting angry.
I mean if God wanted to He could just end us all.
No, the more you study the Bible and the more you spend time with God, the more you understand how much God is Love and how much God is Good.
God doesn’t just do good things – God is Good.
God doesn’t just love everyone – God is Love
When our third grade teacher spent time with us something special happened – we got to know her better. We got to spend quality time with her outside of the classroom – eating with her at lunch and playing with her at recess. She was always our teacher – we respected her – but we came to love her. She was more than our teacher – she became our mentor – she became our friend – she became one of us.
That is Jesus’ prayer in John 17 – that we become One with God. And that in return through His Holy Spirit we become GOOD, LOVING, ABLE and STRONG. That we become like God – that we enjoy life here on this earth and that we enjoy Him and one another.
II. Having a Great Time with God leads us to Having a Great Time with One Another – Creating Community
If we don’t always understand God then it is even truer that we don’t always understand one another. When we don’t understand one another or work at understanding one another we are handicapped in forming Community. And it is in Community that we experience our greatest joy.
There are some reasons why we often do not form Community:
+We are often too nervous around one another.
+We are a tad bit suspicious of one another.
+We are a tad bit competitive with one another.
+We are a tad bit judgmental of one another.
Too often we are tempted to come to church to worship God but spend most of our time wondering what someone else with think of us if we sing to loud, if we pray out loud, if we amen or if we laugh to loud or do something that someone else thinks is inappropriate or irreverent.
Too often we are tempted to come to church and focus more on what someone else has said, is wearing or the way they look at us than we do enjoying our time together to form a Community in Christ.
I remember this one time we were at recess and we started fussing about how we should pick teams. Our teacher stepped back and wisely just watched. She didn’t try to get in the middle of our argument. Sadly, we spend the whole recess time fussing with each other and before we knew it our time was gone. We looked shocked. We were not happy.
She took the time once we got into the building to help us understand that if we want to play then we need to focus on playing and not on fussing or always getting our own way. Recess is a time to enjoy the outdoors and community and it is not a time to sit and fuss and fight with one another over things that don’t matter. It really didn’t matter which team got to bat first. We lost the ability to play a whole game over something that foolish.
It is the same way in the church. The focus of us being a church is begin laser focused on enjoying one another’s company and coming together as a community.
This wonderful thing we call Church and Worship is a time of enjoying God and one another – building communion and community.
It takes effort to build Community. It took Jesus’ disciples years to get to the point where they were able to live together, pray together, work together and enjoy Jesus together. A lot of times they competed with each other, blamed each other and even argued with each other.
But the more they allowed the Holy Spirit to lead them the more they came to be in one accord. And the more they were in one accord the more power their prayers had, the more miracles they experienced and the more people were drawn into the Kingdom.
The same is true with all of us. A Church can merely be a gathering of a group of people that meet week after week to sing a few songs, say a prayer or two and then walk out the doors until the next week having little contact if any with one another. If Church is just that then it may be an assembly or a gathering at best but it will never be a community that shares the deepest love and connection that God has destined His Church to experience.
A Church or a Congregation can become a Community where Agape Love is experienced. It can become a community where people don’t get in little huddles and talk about other people who also get in little huddles. It can be a community where people rejoice together as they sing and worship. It can become a community where the word family is not only said but lived out – oneness of heart, mind and soul.
When that happens, a supernatural joy fills the place. When that happens praise happens as people blend into one in singing, praising and enjoying God’s presence with one another. When that happens something special happens – we feel an extra presence as we realize Heaven has come down – Heaven has invaded our little territory of earth – and we can sense God’s presence, His Holy Angels and His Enjoyment.
Once again, community doesn’t happen by accident. It comes by listening to our Teacher – the Holy Spirit. It comes by learning to like each other – warts and all. It comes by us not wasting time running after the perfect community, but living our lives fully in our present community. IT comes by us focusing on what is common among all of us –
+Being Human – Enjoying and Embracing the fact that we have been supernaturally made in the Image of God – Good, Loving, Kind, Creative, Anointed and Approved
+Being a Child of God – Rescued and Redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb and living out a life of holiness in our everyday lives
+Being a Masterpiece in the Making – Not yet finished but being worked on by the Holy Spirit who is an artist in the area of a soul’s sanctification
+Loving God and One Another – Heart, Mind and Soul
We begin to really understand who God is the more we enjoy communion with God. The more we understand how to be in community with one another the more we enjoy one another and love one another and then we see this wonderful synergy happen -
III. We Become Co - missional
We become Co-missional. And Co-missional occurs supernaturally as we commune and build community with God and with One Another.
When we children put down our differences, focused on each one of us being our best and helping each other, it was amazing what we could do. Each year in our school each class had a project that they had to share with the whole school. Most of the time it was to put on a play or sing some songs.
The key was we were to share our talents as a group with the rest of the school.
Looking back, I marvel now at the intelligence of our school teachers and staff. Part of the reason we played together, learned together, worked together, sang together, ate together and did a lot more together was to build communion with our leaders, community with one another so that at the appointed time we could be our best to put forth our mission – be that mission singing some songs in public, doing a small play or putting on a program.
We may not have realized it or not but we were melting into one another. We were fulfilling the mission that the school had designed for us to fulfill – to not just gain a portion of knowledge but to be infused with a level of character, integrity and honor.
In the same way we in the Church have a Co-mission. In and through the Holy Spirit we are to be God’s witnesses here on the earth. We are to commune with Him. We are to become a localized community of agape believers who are able to reveal to the world what it means to be Incarnational Disciples of Jesus Christ – having God’s Holy Spirit infill us, baptize us and live in, with and through us day after day.
We are to be the means by which the world and the Kingdom of Heaven touch one another.
When Jesus was walking around on this earth one of the sayings that He kept saying over and over again was that the Kingdom of Heaven was here – the Kingdom of Heaven was now present.
Many people thought that Jesus was only referring to Himself. And certainly when we look Scripture we could make that assumption – that Jesus was talking about His Coming to Earth – that Heaven in fact had invaded the Earth. That the Good God of Creation was now walking around His Earth in Human Form.
And we would be right. When Jesus did come to earth it was in fact the Kingdom of Heaven invading the Earth. But that was not to be the only invasion or Heaven touching Earth event.
The Day of Pentecost lets us know that you and I can be a part of God’s Kingdom coming to Earth. Each time we pray the LORD’s Prayer that is our prayer – “thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”
The only way that can happen is through you and me along with billions more Christ followers.
-We have the means to bring God’s will to this earth.
-We have the power to do all the things that God wants to do on the earth – to help people be rescued, redeemed and restored into the Image of God.
-We have the ability to bring agape love not just in theory but in practice.
-We have the ability to bring forgiveness to our earth.
-We have the ability to bring Heaven’s praise and worship to our earth.
-We have the means to bring heaven to earth.
We do that through having communion with God.
We do that through building community with one another.
We do that by living out the Co-mission that God gave us – to go and share the Good News – to go and live out the Good News with joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, patience and the rest of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Throughout the years the Church of Jesus Christ has taken on many different forms:
+At times it has been more a classroom with the emphasis being on correct teaching – with very little emotion and more of a focus on the mind/intellect/teaching
+At times it has been more emotional – rising and falling at every whim of people’s emotions
+At times it has been focused more on rules – being God’s Spiritual Policeman/Judge/Jury
+At times it has been dedicated to being a Gate Keeper – makings sure nothing unholy or carnal gets inside of its doors
But when the Church is at its best it is more like a group of children at recess –
Enjoying creation (the outdoors), enjoying a time with their teacher (the Holy Spirit) and enjoying a time of creating community with one another.
Living out the life of a Child of God who is constantly learning, adapting, transforming and enjoy the abundant life of freedom.
Living out the life of a Child of God that enjoys imaging the impossible and surrendering to the LORD to be a vessel in which He can do the impossible.
Living out a life of a Child of God touching heaven and knowing that God loves you and others love you as well.
It all starts with Communion – Communion with God.
It continues on through Community – Learning, Adapting and Realizing what it means to live in Agape Love with God, Ourselves and Others.
It ends with this amazing synergy called Co-mission where we are able to reveal to the world what it means to be a Spirit-filled Disciple of Jesus Christ.
It ends with this amazing synergy in which we become the best version of ourselves that God created us to be and we help others become the best version of themselves that God created them to be in this life and in the life to come.
This week – go out and enjoy recess – Holy, Supernatural Recess – enjoy spending time with God, working on community with your family, with you co-workers and with your fellow disciples. Then watch as God uses all of us to transform ourselves and our church from the inside out – Building and Living Out Community!
Closing Song – Sharing the LORD’s Supper – Open Altar – Benediction
