Where is your "You"?

July 16, 2006
from Ephesians 1:3-14 and John 15:1-12

"It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for..."

My sermon outline included these thoughts. I talked about my personal history and about God's plans in the world, plans which are before and which will outlast any current circumstances...

• I was talking once with a person who’d had a child born into their family with a crippling disease... & they struggled, as the disciples struggled in John 9 trying to understand why a man had been born blind... & it was not the sin of the man nor his folks but it happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life: the man was healed and gave witness about Jesus Christ. This person and I talked about how because of this child (who’s mind is well intact and who is otherwise a healthy happy child) a generation will be changed.

• Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans

• Even only after 2 weeks here I’m seeing how God’s gonna use my past 4 years at WL to shepherd and lead this congregation

• challenges of sustaining of this church, of building up of our youth and teens, of vitality in our city

• world faces challenges in the Middle East, & when lasting peace comes about, we must give credit to God

• I started out saying This can’t be good, but I read in Ephesians about God’s long term plans, that before anything, God had a plan for good. Before Israel and Palestine started fighting, God had a plan for good. Before my wife died, God had a plan for good. Before the challenges we face in this congregation and in this community, God had a plan for good

• and that plan includes God choosing us to love us, adopting us into his family through Jesus Christ, and leading us to wholeness and holiness as God’s people. We were chosen beforehand to be pure and blameless, free from sin and free from death for though our bodies will die God’s plan doesn’t stop there but God’s plan is bringing everything in earth and heaven together, thanks be to God.

• as Eugene Peterson writes in The Message, "It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for... (Eph. 1:11).

You’ll find your “you” in Christ Jesus... we’ll find our “us” there, our purpose in community.

- Pastor Kerry

This Sunday: Hot and humid, 59 in worship.