It all comes down to this moment. The big interview, the crucial presentation, the final exam, race, kick, recital, answer, play or shot. The pressure is immense. The expectations high. Everyone is watching. Your heart is racing. Your palms are sweaty. Your future is riding on it. Will you perform or choke under the pressure? Sometimes life feels like one big performance review. It's affirming to hear how you excel and do well, but the internal fear of not being good enough can be hard. And it's not just our jobs. Our marriages, parenting and relationships can seem like a constant review of our worthiness.
It's not a huge step then, to transfer those expectations over to our relationship with God. "If I try harder, I will be closer to God. If I get it right, he will love me more". Our perfect performance is never a requirement for a relationship with God. Our "successes" don't earn us kingdom credits and our "chokes" or under performance don't exclude us from a place in his kingdom, for our deeds are never equal to his character. That's the good news we will hear again today as Jesus shows us a way through the "Pressure Point" of performance.
#4 in series: Pressure Points
'What's this world coming to?' Have you ever lamented the changing nature of our world? How you ever felt the pressure of society trying to squeeze you into a mold, make you conform or fit in? That pressure is all around us. We are constantly bombarded with expectations about who we should be, how we should look, what we should do, what we should possess and how we should act. The pressure of being pulled in a thousand different directions can lead to stress, anxiety and a sense of emptiness and loneliness. Instead of drawing us together, the net result of all these competing forces is to set us in opposition to the very people we desire to relate to. Jesus comes to us from outside of our brokenness to restore us from the inside out and when that happens a positive life-giving force is unleashed on the world, bringing gospel transformation that is authentic, inclusive, and eternity shaping.
#3 in series: Pressure Points
Pressure works in two directions. It can press in from something outside of us, or it can build up and push out from within like a balloon about to burst. Many families today are like balloons right on the edge of bursting. There are just so many things that families have allowed to fill their lives. Things like music lessons, sport, academic tutoring, or second language classes have family members out every night of the week. Then there are the technology pressures, online gaming, personal electronic devices and entertainment streaming services that isolate people from each other even on those rare occasions when they might all be at home together. The outside world has more pathways into family life than ever before and many families just don't know what to do with the pressure it exerts. Today, God encourages us to fill our family life not with activities, although these can be great; not with devices and entertainment, although there is also a time and place for this; but to fill our family first with the Word of God - a word which teaches, admonishes, corrects, guides and shapes us into the likeness of Christ and enables us to live abundantly and obediently in the midst of every external and internal pressure point a family can face.
#2 in series Pressure Points
There’s a lot of fighting about money’, ‘we have no time with our children’, ‘it’s diminished my pleasure in living’, ‘it’s impossible to enjoy family life’, and ‘it’s nearly torn my husband and I apart’. These comments in a recent NSW survey convey just some of the anguish and distress that is being felt by sky-high inflation, surging rental prices, and exorbitant energy costs. More and more are reverting to last resort measures to cover costs - skipping meals, going without prescribed medications and health care and relying on Buy Now Pay later to cover the essentials. Then there is the shame that people have felt at not being able to afford a haircut or decent clothes, having to borrow money from family or lining up at food pantries for the first time - and it's not just low-income families. The cost of living pressure point is real and many are cracking under the strain. God knows the pressure you are under…and today he speaks a word of hope and promise that enables us to live with faith and trust when the cost of living pressure point is breaking us.
#1 in series: Pressure Points
"This is not what I signed up for!" Ever spoken those words? Launched yourself into a new position a new role, a new project with great expectations, high hopes and even (secretly) visions of grandeur ? What did you do when you discovered a reality that was quite the opposite? The dream was shattered with disappointment, the anticipation replaced with anxiety and things go from bad to worse...the longed-for success becomes a matter of survival. Meet Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe who desired to be the hero of the people but was hated by the people, who anticipated triumph but experienced trauma, who longed for recognition but was subject to ridicule. who desired exaltation but was driven to exhaustion! If that is your story too, and you are ready to disengage, God has a word that will enable you to persevere and fully engage in daily faithfulness, even when the task seems thankless. We'll explore that today.
#11 and final in series: "Fully Engaged"
Nomophobia. Many of us have experienced it. Those who suffer from it are left directionless, flustered and lost. It can cause isolation, disconnection, and anxiety. Nomophobia…the fear of losing your phone! The phone has become so essential for our lives that we are constantly asking 'where is our phone' or others remind us, 'Have you got your phone?' Our phones gives guidance, direction and keep us connected in life. Our phones give us entry to places, give us access to information, pay our way and help us navigate through lots of life's circumstances. But as many of us have experienced….the battery can run out when we most need it, disconnect us from others without warning or take us to destinations that we haven't desired to go.
God has a way of keeping us connected to him and his promises. It's called prayer and today we will look at how that helps us to remain fully engaged with his promise.
#10 in series: "Fully Engaged"
The Fool. In Shakespearean drama, the character of ‘the fool’ comes in many guises, but whatever form they take, whether common peasant or court jester, ‘the fool’ is often the only one in the play who accurately reads the situation and provides sound wisdom and understanding.
Just as the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight (1Cor 3:19) sometimes the wisdom of God can seem like foolishness to us. In today's reading, God asked Jeremiah to do something that is absolutely crazy and foolish from a worldly perspective. But that is exactly the kind of obedience that God asks of Jeremiah, that’s the type of faith that he desires of his people, that’s a hope that trusts more in the wisdom of God than in the opinion of the popular culture. And that’s what it means to be fully engaged in God’s legacy even when it appears absurd and foolish...That's what we’ll explore today
#9 in series: "Fully Engaged"
Secret sound, it’s that game that almost every radio station has played at one point or another. Play a short clip of an everyday sound, something that people hear all the time but probably never notice or actually listen to and see who can guess what it is.
Sometimes God’s heart is like a secret sound, it’s something he has demonstrated and shows to us on a daily basis and yet for many of us it is often something we fail to recognise. But the beat of God’s heart is no secret, God’s heart beats for his people, for their restoration to a loving and right relationship with himself and with each other. That’s what we’ll rediscover as we explore being fully engaged with God’s heart.
#8 in series: Fully Engaged
Social media gives the ability to curate our own life and our own online communities. We can choose our friends and what we allow them to see. We can choose how deeply we engage or connect with those we follow or who 'follow' us. But that doesn’t often lead to deep and authentic community or connection. We seem more at ease these days holding each other at a distance rather that getting to involved with one anothers business.
Sometimes God puts us in places we don’t want to be among people we’d rather not share life with. But where we are may be exactly where God needs us to be, for not only do we learn to trust him and the future he has promised us, but we might be a part of his plan to bring connection and hope to the cities and places where he has called and placed us. Today, we’ll explore what it means to be fully engaged in community life, with God, right where he has placed us.
#7 in series: Fully Engaged