Paul

You Know
Praise Goes Out To You
Our God Saves
I Adore You
I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever
Hallelujah

Jon

God’s love is raining down on you…

Celebrate graduates

Idea of change and transitional times
Academic graduation occurs, but there are pivotal non-academic changes: getting married, choosing a career, moving, etc
Grad time is bittersweet: youth ministers say goodbye to old students and hello to new students
His metabolism has changed…can’t just eat anything anymore
Used to be able to be conscious of what he ate – “think about it and lose weight”
Pre-emptive workout run this morning
Jeans with elastic waistbrand
These things are gonna slide right off
Argued with mom to no avail
Don’t want to be in junior high wearing Osh Kosh
Transition is hard
Motivation
Choose to apply or deny what God is saying in our lives
Tons of chances to transition, but early adopters get better benefits
Samuel and Eli
1 Samuel 3:1-18
God is more of a Simon Cowell than a Paula Abdul
Words are far and few between, stern and full of correction
Matt said he hated dentists and possums
Just possums now
Churches get creepy at night
Slaughterhouse made of gold
Very late/early in the morning and Samuel faithfully wakes up when called
True transformation through obedience to deliver the message
Samuel ran to a different source three times
Can we hear His voice and discern it from all the others?
Romans 12:1-2
Attitude, lifestyle change
No high five from Eli
God had to use a 12 year old boy to get the point home…and that was the 2nd warning!
God doesn’t want a new hat and t-shirt
He wants a metamorphosis, on the inside
He wants our actions to be renewed
Have our minds transformed by God
Samuel has to deal with Saul and David
His graduation at 12 helps him prepare for the future
Samuel could have found the easy way out, but he was obedient
So deep in our hearts that it changes our actions
Psalm 25:4
Transition into a period of transformation
Purpose in our hearts that God’s gonna do something amazing this summer…deliver hard messages
Awesome responsibilty to work with your family and co-workers

Paul

With special guest violinist/mandolin player
All Creatures Of Our God And King (violin, lindy)
Holy One (mandolin, fast lindy/charleston)

Announcements

There’s a story in Exodus about Moses (I would hope so!)

Paul

'Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus (mandolin)
Blessed Assurance (mandolin/violin)
Everything (violin)
Your Love Endures Forever (mandolin)

John Teeler (sp?)

Fountain of Life Covenant Church
Church down the street
Friends with the Lakers band
Knowing God’s heart
Didn’t grow up in the church (want to watch Popeye)
Father died early in a gliding accident
Lost the
Christian club wrote a 5-page letter saying he had a 1:1 chance of not going to church
Smoking, drinking, partying wasn’t the problem, it was a solution
Late afternoon, surfing accident on a huge day, caught in a rip current
Comes to the realization that today I’m going to die
Two things popped: mom lost dad 5 years ago; already paid for prom limo
Prayed: God if you’re real, help me
Red buoy, dolphin man helps him to shore and disappears
3 years later, he ran into Dave Palmer from Sacramento Bible College
Mother’s Day, May 1992 (year after the riots)
Asked God about saving him
Inner small voice says: Psalm 18:19
Rescued because I delight in you
This is God’s heart
Poor connected with God over 3,000 times
Luke Mary’s Song, 4:16
The way up is down in the kingdom of Heaven
The world is upside down, God is turning it rightside up
Sends the rich away empty handed
Revolution is the theme
Swimming
10 meter mark has a flag, reminder of wall, 2 strokes and flip turn
Luke is a flag to our world
A turn is coming
Friend did a doctoral study connecting African AIDS orphans with American inner cities
Fatherlessness is an epidemic in America
Fathers that just aren’t there
Psalms 10
Revolution has begun
Luke 1-3
Elizabeth and Sarah
Anna and Simeon
Ragtag shepherds
Old timers
Difference between Jesus and Uncle Sam? Sam only wants the healthy, Jesus wants the sick
Luke 4 is the Jerry Maguire moment
Sending out the message
Finances, education, gender, purity of health, occupation: these five determined whether you were in or out
1900, 8% lived in urban centers, now 55%
Cain goes to the first city???
New York didn’t have a church for 15 years
Shanghai has 30% more skyscraper than New York
God takes vulnerability and makes you strong
United By Faith: Emerson
8% of American churches are multicultural
80% cultural is a multicultural church
Tax collectors
Women at the well
Blind man
Widow at Mane (sp?)
Nicodemus asks how, not why
Depends on perspective
If you’re marginalized, good news
If you’re elite, not so good
Widow at Zeraphith
Is Luke 4 good news for you?
Intervarsity campus preacher at USC
USC is the Luke 16 gates
Poor man at the rich mans gates
Go down to skid row
Police think they’re crazy
Befriended homeless community
Gatorade, PB&J, clothes
Beth Ann, freshman was doing PB&J, ran out of bread
Half the line to go
Beth Ann quoted Jesus’ friends said we ran out of bread -> feeding the 5000
Latino man showed up in Lincoln Continental with leftover Panera bread
Moved to CSUDH Intervarsity
75 separate ministries at UCLA
CSUDH – 60% campus is diverse
1 church – Christ Cult from 60 Minutes
Homeless man accosted him – We don’t want you here
Church plant 5 years later
Suburban and urban
Snitches get stitches?
Master in computers?

Video

What shall we do?
July 6th Family Center 710/405
July 10th VBS
Don’t have to go far to find needy people

Paul

July 6th is a big day
A few go to Africa, a lot go to Long Beach
We are His hands and feets
God Of This City

Paul

Be The Air
Hosanna (Lindy)

Announcements

VBS July 13,15,17 9am-12pm

Paul

Anthem To The King
All I Need Is You
I will learn to love / I will learn to believe You
Be The Center

Guest Speaker: Mick Wilson, Jon’s brother-in-law

Suffering part 2
Liver tumors benign, ovary lesions benign
Rapids will come, suffering will happen
Do we have the ability to look ahead and think clearly as they hit?
Isaiah 43:2
If you get thrown, here’s how to survive
Fire on you is not fun
1 Peter 4:12
Refining fire
Pure metal and dross (what burns off)
Exposes idols, false trusts
1 Peter 1
Three things
Look back, forward and into
Standing meetings are quick meetings
Suffering can increase your faith
Faith proved genuine
Look back at Shadrach
Daniel 13
Son of God walking
“His love held out, and He resolved even then, in the midst of His agony, to yield Himself up to the will of God, and to take the cup and drink it” -Jonathon Edwards
Separation from God involves separation from light and life, is darkness
Looks at what He will go through and says “Yes”
Not trite about suffering
Open will, free will, open theism, it’s a mystery
No clear answers as to why in the Bible
There are not answers in the Bible
Peter talks about the prophets
Amos 9:11
Nahum 2:2
Joel 3:1
Zephaniah 3:20
Matthew 19:28
Palinggenesia – Paling (new) genesia (creation, genesis)
Pure, unfading, imperishable
Acts 3:21
A new genesis, a renewal
Revelation 21:4-5
Throne is key
Center of Revelation
Not making new things, making everything new
- Look into something -
v. 12 – For even the angels long to look into these things
The Gospel
Epiphenia – passion, lust, desire
Not just how to become a Christian
Jesus lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died
Scott and Andrea Sward (January 2008)
Diverticulitis
People with a glory and presence about it
Go talk to him…2 hours later
Seminary grads, going to Cambodia was an 8 year passion
February 4th, 2008 – Car rolls
Boy killed
2 of three missionaries killed, 3rd broke her neck, wife in a coma (now has massive scars), husband in hospital
Cruising along when a wave came up and smashed them against the rocks
Like a warm blanket violently ripped off
Safe in the center of Gods will
Chucked Christianity out the window, darkest hour, but then an unexplainable love of God welled up
Faith is a gift
Wrestling with God all night
Cambodian woman walked into his room and said “I’m a Christian because of missionaries like you”
The cross is the safest place – a God who suffers for us and with us
God is in the business of redeeming – making things new
God meets you in the darkest places
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Child psychologist on monsters in the closet and nightmares
Don’t give 4 year old’s answers (there’s no monsters in the closet), they can’t understand that – hold them and be with them
You need the body
There is a renewal coming for what Christ did
Grace, not I hate thee or I hate me
We have a sovereign God who walked and walks through our fires with us

Communion

How Deep The Father's Love
Closer

Paul

Revelation Song
Blessed Be Your Name (lindy)
Exalt The Lord Our God
There Is No One Like Our God segue
God Of This City
You Alone

Guest Speaker: Mick Wilson (Jon’s brother-in-law)

Was wondering what to share with us
Had his hand shattered by a dump truck tailgate
Then his wife called him with CAT scan results: lemon-sized lesions on her liver and tumors on her ovaries
Now the liver is possibly benign
Suffering is what he wants to share
If God is so good then why is there so much evil?
Why them? Why me? WHY?
How can I handle [blank]?
Powerful questions
How do I get through this?
Start digging
Lots of perspective and history in the bible
2 Corinthians
Paul is being questioned as to his authority
4:6 and 12
Back at Bel Air Presbyterian, Jon led river rafting trips
Fowler’s Rock
Training before you go out
Hold your breath when waves hit
Feet up – don’t break your femur
Call – rapids – calm – rapids
Satan’s Cesspool
Dig and turn
Uses the paddle to lever himself
Don’t go high water route, go right for the normal route
Unbalanced raft and it spun left, smacked into Fowler’s rock and flipped over
Waterfalls are holes
Sucked in and pummeled
Current will push you under
Strainers – reeds that spaghetti you
You’re in calm water but something’s coming
John 16:1
Matthew 13,14,15
The white water is coming
Acts 14:22
People think Christianity is about affluence…if you’re not rich you have sin in your life
That’s not what the bible says
2 Corinthians 1:8-9
4:7-8
Paul is being honest and real
I was this and now this has happened to God’s glory
They’re happy stories
It’s not all that relateable – God is doing something deeper
Job – and he did not sin before God
Houseboating
Kid going through divorce and abuse
Said he didn’t feel like God wasn’t with him
Gave him a list if Psalms – 88
It just ends
Shifted kid’s faith paradigm
2 Corinthians 4 – Carry the death around so that the life is revealed
Crucifixion leads to ressurection
Seeds have to die in order to grow into new life
Life comes from death
2 Corinthians 4:16-17
Secularism
Suffering is bad, flee it
Buddhism says good will come out of suffering, but Christ went further
Dealing with youth has taught him that they are light and fluffy until crisis and suffering – they collapse
They haven’t been through a lot
Put it all together – no glory, no suffering
A husband and wife had 2 miscarriages, finally a successful birth and husband confesses to adultery
2 Corinthians 4 (the message)
Gods goal isn’t our success but His glory
Scary Prayer
Do whatever it takes to bring me closer to you
Romans 2:28-29
Heroes of faith
They went through hellacious suffering
Charles Spurgeon
I am certain that I never did grow in grace one half so much anywhere
Dive into the sea of suffering to get the best pearls
Rutherford
Cellar of affliction holds God’s best wines
Danni tribe murders missionaries son
Movie -> End of the Spear
Gods sovereignty – not just the ability or goodness to carry out his will…he carries it out!
Joni Earecksom Tada
Only in sufferings will we know Jesus
If you’re gonna pray the scary prayer be sure to make a post it note with the date of the prayer so when you hit the rapids you can look back and go, “Oh yeah”
A. W. Towzer
Amy Carmichael
John 9:3-4 (the message)
Sin = suffering
Wrong question
No blame
Look at what God can do
Don’t look at why, look at what
Lazarus
John 11:3-4
It’s not about you – it’s about God’s glory
The cross is the most amazing thing God has ever done
Jesus was wiping out disease in Palestine – everyone thought his redemptive work ended at the cross
God’s redemption of humankind
I hate me – I hate thee
No condemnation for those in Christ – past, present, and future sins are all forgiven
God disciplines us – Hebrews 12
John – pruning vineyard
Has God abandoned us? How?
What did Jesus suffer?
Separation, rejection, death, loneliness, misunderstood, betrayal, political injustice, all of hell and God’s wrath pouring down on him
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Gesthemane
Take this cup, nevertheless Your will be done
Rock in your way, pray
Remove the rock or raise the water
Everything results in God’s glory
Isaiah 43:2
When…not if…when
Wild At Heart -> for men
Captivating -> for women
Sometimes we need two by fours to get the message
Upper endoscopsy
Positive for celliacs disease
Gluten free – no wheat, barley, rye
IBS, called various things
You will face crises – I will be faithful
I am freeing you and I am healing you
Shaping us
God’s sovereignty is the pillow we rest our heads on

Paul

It Is Well With My Soul

Matt

Common thread of what God is doing at our church
Lessons we can learn before you get into the current
Will we pay attention
Romans 15:5
Endurance – long suffering, patience
Satan loves to make you feel alone
Unity in suffering