MAKE ROOM FOR GOD
by Bob Wickizer
Scripture: ISAIAH 64:1-9, PSALM 80:1-7, PSALM 80:16-18, I CORINTHIANS 1:3-9, MARK 13:24-37
Make Room for God
Bob Wickizer
Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 801-7,16-18; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37
November 27, 2005
Happy New Year everyone. Today we start a new liturgical year on the First Sunday of Advent. After Thanksgiving, the world outside our doors has gone crazy with a frenzy of shopping and consumerism – "only 28 more shopping days left until Christmas." The world out there has already moved to the baby in a manger.
The world inside our church and the world inside us is not there yet. Instead we are going to take the next four weeks preparing ourselves so that we are truly ready to accept the miracle of God made flesh and dwelt among us.
Today is the first of four such preparatory steps. Today we will consider two things about ourselves that we might change in order to be ready to receive God coming into our very lives. These two aspects of human pride get in the way preventing God from entering into us.
First is our constant drive to create some sense of security and second is our desire to play god by thinking of ourselves as always correct and taking the role of judging others.
For the first aspect of pride involving our need to create a sense of security I will tell you a modern parable. This is another end of times, apocalyptic scenario like my example last Sunday.
In this story an earthquake or some widespread catastrophe strikes as major city. Two friends are about to run out of a shaking and disintegrating building with heavy things falling all around. One of them stops turns around and begins to run back INTO the crumbling building. His friend sees this and shouts at him "Are you crazy, what are you doing?" To which the other friend replies "I forgot my insurance policy."
Don't we all find ourselves looking for the wrong things in the wrong places at the wrong times? Isn't that the message of the consumer world as we spend the next four weeks frantically shopping? We think somehow that getting and spending ...
Bob Wickizer
Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 801-7,16-18; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37
November 27, 2005
Happy New Year everyone. Today we start a new liturgical year on the First Sunday of Advent. After Thanksgiving, the world outside our doors has gone crazy with a frenzy of shopping and consumerism – "only 28 more shopping days left until Christmas." The world out there has already moved to the baby in a manger.
The world inside our church and the world inside us is not there yet. Instead we are going to take the next four weeks preparing ourselves so that we are truly ready to accept the miracle of God made flesh and dwelt among us.
Today is the first of four such preparatory steps. Today we will consider two things about ourselves that we might change in order to be ready to receive God coming into our very lives. These two aspects of human pride get in the way preventing God from entering into us.
First is our constant drive to create some sense of security and second is our desire to play god by thinking of ourselves as always correct and taking the role of judging others.
For the first aspect of pride involving our need to create a sense of security I will tell you a modern parable. This is another end of times, apocalyptic scenario like my example last Sunday.
In this story an earthquake or some widespread catastrophe strikes as major city. Two friends are about to run out of a shaking and disintegrating building with heavy things falling all around. One of them stops turns around and begins to run back INTO the crumbling building. His friend sees this and shouts at him "Are you crazy, what are you doing?" To which the other friend replies "I forgot my insurance policy."
Don't we all find ourselves looking for the wrong things in the wrong places at the wrong times? Isn't that the message of the consumer world as we spend the next four weeks frantically shopping? We think somehow that getting and spending ...
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