Grace – Page 6 – { Andrew Mills }

Hudson and His Church Antics, and Church Love

Today we were talking about Jesus as Hudson and I drove to daycare. At one point Hudson just blurts out “Daddy I really love Jesus, because I love going to church.” For Hudson the connection he has with our church, has positively influenced his connection with Jesus. And I know for many people out there, the church hasn’t been helpful with people connecting with Jesus. For some they like Jesus, but not the church. But that’s why I love my church so much, because it is showing and helping Hudson to fall in love with the Jesus I know.

So my first thought to Hudson’s little statement was this. Thank you. Thank you to all those in our church who continue to pour into our kids. Thank you for all those who welcome kids and make them feel safe and supported. Thank you for all those who continue to love not only my sons but all those around you.

Thank you that when he runs down the aisle yelling that he has to pee, you smile and say “run fast little guy”.
Thank you for how when we were potty training, and at the front of the church he pulled down his pants to show off his new “big boy” underwear – you all cheered.
Thank you for how you watch my boys on Sundays so I can connect with others, and I always know he is safe and cared for.
And yes last but not least, I will even say thank you to all of you (which is most of you) who love to give my boys as many cookies and treats as possible before we go home. Because your generosity has Hudson hooked on church, and Jesus.

So thank you. And for all of you who don’t go to my church, thank you if you do the same in your community. If you welcome and care and reach out. Because those little actions, high fives, and hugs change lives. I know they’ve changed Hudson’s and because of that – they are changing mine too. Thank you.

June 18, 2014 by Andrew Mills

What is the Father Like?

On Sunday we looked at who the Father is. Many of us have this idea that like this comic shows that the Father is in heaven ready to smite. That if it weren’t for Jesus, the Father would be angry with us. That the Father’s natural disposition is not being nice like Jesus, but anger, wrath, and punishment. But this is not the picture Jesus paints of his Father

We began exploring how the Father is one who goes looking for the lost, and hurting in Matthew 18:12-14. In this passage Jesus is clear that the Father’s desire isn’t for anyone to be lost. That he notices you, and comes to seek and find you when you wander off. The posture of the Father is one of yearning, inclusion, and finding, not vengeance and “smiting”.

The second passage we looked at is Matthew 7:7-11. In this passage we see a Father who loves to give good gifts. And this matters because so often we have this feeling that God is stingy, uninterested, or that we need to “work harder” (more prayer, fasting, or faith) for God to answer our prayers. But Jesus reveals a Father who is generous, active, and approachable. Jesus reveals a Father in heaven who is filled with abundant generosity not scarcity. And this is a picture we need to get straight and hold onto.

The third passage we looked at was Luke 6:35-36. Here we see something that we often forget. The Father is merciful. Jesus is so clear, and succient reminding us the Father is merciful. The Father is not full of wrath, and anger but full of mercy. Jesus isn’t the nice one, while the Father is the angry one. Jesus reveals who the Father is, and he is clear that he is merciful. So whatever else we do with some of the other complex passages in Scripture we need to be clear on this: the Father is full of mercy.

And finally, the last passage we looked at was the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. This really summarizes all the other passages. That when the son demands his inheritance the Father’s generosity is so deep, he is even willing to give when it hurts and will be taken advantage of. We see also that the Father searches and looks for his son, like a lost sheep. We also see the Father welcome home the son with compassion and love and mercy, not judgment and wrath. We lastly see the Father being full of forgiveness.

So the main point on Sunday was to centre on the picture of the Father as revealed by Jesus. One who is loving, generous, merciful, and forgiving. This is our Father in heaven and this should change how we live.

Dads, we need to be Fathers like the Father in heaven.

Parents we need to parent like the Father in heaven.

Christians we need to live and follow the “house rules” and “house values” of our Father in heaven. We need to be about mercy, forgiveness, compassion, and love as well

So on Sunday we gave the challenge to get closer to the Father, and live like the Father. This is a good reminder to us because we need to get rid of the idea that God is sitting by a computer ready to smite. We need to get centred on the Father that Jesus reveals.

Sermon Notes

Big Idea: The Father is loving, generous, merciful, and forgiving

Take Aways…

We have a wrong picture of God the Father
Our picture of God the Father needs to be based in the revelation of Jesus Christ
If our picture of God the Father is off, so will our lives.
The Father’s reaction isn’t to smite but to find
Heaven is not about scarcity, but abundance, and gift, and generosity
The Father is merciful
Jesus didn’t die because the Father was angry, Jesus died as an expression of God’s love not anger
The Father Jesus reveals is loving, merciful, generous, and forgiving.
Next Steps: Go to the Father. Thank our fathers. Live like the Father
The greatest tragedy of our lives, is that we forget who we are. Henri Nouwen

Adult / Group Discussion Questions: What stuck out to you from the sermon? What was challenging to you? How did God speak to you through it? What was new? What picture did you have of the Father in your mind before today’s sermon? Was he generous or stingy? Kind of angry? Forgiving or judgy? What has shaped your image of the Father? What image / passage most resonated with you today? What has changed in your view of the Father after today? What questions do you have? How can you live more like him?

Discussion Questions / Actions for Young Families: Today talk to your kids about what God the Father is like. How he is loving, generous, forgiving and merciful. Tell them this is who he is, and who you want to be like. Make a promise to them to try to live like their Father in heaven.

Challenge for this Week: Get close to the Father, and live like the Father

June 16, 2014 by Andrew Mills

We Keep Forgetting Who We Are…

Henri Nouwen, who is generally brilliant in all he writes, once wrote this:

One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.

And this true.

One of the great tragedies of our lives is that we forget who we are. We forget that we are loved. Because who we all are, according to the Bible, are people who are deeply loved, cherished, and valued by God. We have value, worth and intrinsic significance, not just because of what we do or believe, but because the Creator loves his creation; because the Father loves his children; because the King loves his people; because the Spirit loves his family.

The point is that it is a tragedy whenever we forget who we are, when we forget we are loved. Because when we forget this central truth, our lives can spiral and spin through difficulty, and insecurity. But when we are centred on this truth, that we are loved, our lives can burst forth meaning, courage, and significance.

So I just think that’s something worth reflecting on today. That you are loved. Don’t forget it.

May 28, 2014 by Andrew Mills

Daddy You’re My Son

Earlier this week Hudson woke me up from bed because we all slept in (Praise God!). And he said something a bit strange…”Wake up daddy, you’re my son. I love you. Wake up daddy”. And I said to him, “Hey buddy I’m your daddy, you’re my son. I’m not your son.”

And then he explained what he meant to me. Hudson went on to explain how I am his son, because he loves me. Hudson has somehow so associated the word love, and son – that they have become almost interchangeable for him.

And for me this is an amazing thing!

What it means is that I must use the words love and son in such close connection so often that Hudson hasn’t separated them. That for him they are almost synonyms. He believes that to be a son is to be loved, and that when you love someone they are your son.

And it just made me think – what if all our kids new this? I mean, what if they all knew deep down that to be a son or a daughter is to be loved? That being loved is foundational to their identity as a son or daughter? That because they are a son or a daughter they are loved beyond anything else and that – that love is certain and forever? What if the words and actions of our lives so tie together the words sons, daughters, and love that they can’t be separated? I think this is a beautiful goal and it is also a godly goal.

Because if we learn anything from the Gospels we should learn that in God’s Kingdom to be a child of God and to be loved unconditionally are intimately tied together. That being a son or daughter of God is so foundationally tied to being loved completely that they can’t be separated. 1st John 3:1 says this, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” Being a child of God is to be loved by God, and being loved by God is to be included and welcomed into his family. I just think that’s beautiful. And I think anytime we can model that love and inclusion in our own families is important too.

So obviously all of that is to say that I didn’t correct Hudson. So if he runs up to you and says you are his son, it just means he loves you deeply like a dad does a son. And that’s not a bad thing.

May 14, 2014 by Andrew Mills

The Temptation When Your Tired

I’m tired. And when I’m tired I get tempted, by probably the biggest temptation I face on a daily basis.

I get tempted to forget that God is good.

When I get tired, when I get busy, when I’m in the nitty gritty of life and ministry there is a temptation to forget that God is good. To forget that God is faithful. To forget that God will come through.

When we get busy, tired, or in a dark or difficult place the temptation is to start to believe our doubts, or even to just let the doubts linger too long. That things won’t get better, that things won’t work out, that this time we fail beyond recovery, that this time we won’t find a way out. We start to forget that God is faithful, good, and full of grace. We forget that God is with us. We forget that God will never leave us. We forget that even when we feel tired, worn out, and unsure – God is steady, strong, and there for us.

But we need to remember and rest in the truth of the gospel: that God is good. That God is true. That God is here for us. We must fight the temptation to disbelieve and doubt in the goodness of God. No matter how our lives seem to conspire sometimes to cloud the fact that God is good, we need to continually come back to this fact.

And this isn’t about just positive thinking, it’s about resting in reality. And reality, as the Bible shapes it is this: God is good, God is faithful, and God is there.

So no matter where you are today know this God is good. And he never ever lets go. And that hopefully should give us enough to keep going today.

April 23, 2014 by Andrew Mills

Ridding Pride From Our Lives

On Sunday we tackeled the topic of pride. This is a hard topic because to be honest, in general, I think we try to live with balanced pride. We don’t want to live without it. We don’t want too much of it, but we also don’t want to get rid of it from our lives.

So I began by exploring what pride is. Pride is really misplaced, perverted, and self-directed love. St. Augustine defined pride as “the love of one’s own excellence”. It’s love that is inward rather than outward. And in many ways that’s exactly what pride is: a vortex that makes all affection and love about you. Pride is self-interested and self-centered.

So with this understanding why on earth do we want to have anything to do with pride?

I think the reason we still try to balance and have just enough pride in our lives is this: in our culture we believe we need pride to succeed. That somehow without pride we won’t have any self-esteem, ability, or success in life. On Sunday I made a different case that we don’t need pride to succeed, we need humility.

Pride is based on false premises. It promotes our perfection and hides our flaws. It self-promotes our preferred version of ourselves, regardless of how true it is or isn’t. This is why pride is never a basis for healthy self-esteem: because it’s never based on the truth.

Will Willimon wrote: “To tell you the truth, I can’t think of much that is wrong with a healthy – within limits – sense of Pride, other than that Jesus was against it.”

I think that’s true. So we dove into how if Jesus didn’t display pride, how we might live like him free from it.

Where we landed was pretty simple: turn down pride and invest in humility. Jesus, when we he was tempted by the Devil in the desert, had his pride tested, poked, and prodded each time. But Jesus didn’t give in. He turned down pride, and instead invested in humility

We ended with a few practical ways to do this. The first, turning glory back to God. So often we want the glory for ourselves, but the example of Jesus is to give it back to the Father. So we gave this simple challenge: track the goodness of God this week. Keep track of all that God does for us. As we recognize God’s involvement in our lives, we can give the praise and glory back to him. So our simple challenge was to sit down once everyday and reflect on how God has been active in our lives. This will remind us that our success is not all about us, but God living and moving in and through us.

So why not do that this week? It’s a great step to grow humility and root out pride.

Sermon Notes:

Big Idea: We need to live with humility, and root out pride.

Take Aways…

Pride is the great sin. C.S.Lewis
Pride isn’t something to be shunned anymore, it is something to be embraced in our culture.
Pride is misdirected, misplaced, and perverted love
Pride is vortex that makes love all about you.
“Pride is the love of one’s own excellence” St. Augustine
Pride is a social sin In our culture we believe we need pride to succeed.
The answer to our self-esteem issue, isn’t pride but humility The inward manifestation of pride leads a person to be obsessed with others and how they feel about him or her. Michael Mangis
We’re supposed to instill pride in our children to make them stable people. But humility works even better. Fredrica Matthews-Greeen
“Jesus encounters the temptation to Pride with his rejection and with his silence” Will Willimon
We need to live with humility, and root out pride.
We need to grow in our gratitude to God Pride takes all the credit for success, and blames everyone else for failure. We need to flip this around.

Adult / Group Discussion Questions: What stuck out to you from the sermon? What was challenging to you? How did God speak to you through it? What was new? How has pride ever wrecked a relationship you’ve been in? In what areas or ways do you struggle with pride? How can you grow in humility? Will you choose to track God’s goodness?

Discussion Questions / Actions for Young Families: Today talk to your kids about pride, and humility. Talk to them about being honest with who we are. But be proactive against pride, have them write out good things God has done for them this week. Have them make a picture, or share reasons for being thankful to God. The more they are rooted in that, the harder it will be for pride to take root.

Challenge for this Week Keep track of all the good God does for you this week

April 14, 2014 by Andrew Mills

Amazing Grace ~ A Hope and A Deep Challenge

This Sunday we talked about grace. Grace is a tricky and a challenging thing. It’s a tricky thing because true grace is so difficult to actually practice, but it is absolutely necessary, because grace changes people.

We looked at the parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18. And in this parable there are two really important principles or truths for us. The first, a deep deep encouragement. And it is this: that God is a God of grace. We see the King as a metaphor of God, forgiving a deep debt. A debt so big it couldn’t be payed off. This is grace, unmerited favor, forgiveness, and who our God is. God is a God who forgives impossible debts, because of the surplus of his love.

The second thing we see though is a challenge and a warning. We see the man who has the debt payed off, not changed by the grace that is given, and he goes and strangles a man for a minor debt. The king in the story is enraged and throws the man into prison until he can pay off the debt. And Jesus ends with the saying, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

Now Jesus is not saying that the Father is unwilling to forgive to the unmerciful servant. This is a shallow reading that contradicts the first part. The King is willing, able, and actually does forgive the debt the man owes. The change in response of the King is because of the lack of response from the unmerciful servant. It is as if Jesus is saying as long as you seek to live according to the law, ledger books, and counting of sins and slights you will not be able to experience the grace of God. This isn’t because God isn’t willing to give it, he is. The first part of the parable is clear about that, but you will be unable to receive it because you will be living counter to God’s kingdom.

The point is that to really receive grace, we have to also be willing to give grace. Giving grace to others around us is a demonstration that we have been transformed by God’s grace. Giving and receiving go hand in hand. The challenge then for us as Christians is to give grace, and not trying to earn it or track the sins for and against us.

So we ended up with both an encouragement and a challenge. An encouragement that God is a God of grace. And a challenge, that to truly enter into a relationship with this God at a deep place, we have to be willing to let his grace change us and flow through us. So we ended with this challenge: give grace. Give grace. And I think that’s a good challenge for us all.

Sermon Notes:

Big Idea: We can live with ledger books or we can live with grace

Take Aways…

Grace is central to theology and the Christian faith
If you don’t live by grace, you run the risk of not receiving grace.
The debt was so large it could never be paid off, only forgiven.
For each and everyone of us, there is grace available for us
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. – Jesus
God is a God of grace
No matter how much you owe to him, big or small today you can owe nothing at all.
How unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely. No tale bearer can inform on us, no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our character can come to light to turn God away from us, since He know us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us. A.W. Tozer
God knows you completely, so he can accept you completely
That if we seek to live by the law, we will die by the law.
An unwillingness to give grace, Often shows a heart that grace hasn’t touched
We can live with ledger books or we can live with grace
Its okay there is grace
We need to give grace to keep our hearts soft
Give grace this week

Adult / Group Discussion Questions: What stuck out to you from the sermon? What was challenging to you? How did God speak to you through it? What was new? Why do you think grace is so hard to give? Why might it be incredibly important to actually give? As you think about grace, who do you need to give grace too? Take time to look at the last post that includes a quote from Jay Bakker. What parts of it challenged you, did you disagree with, did you agree with? What parts do you think you need to put into practice?

Discussion Questions for Young Families: Rather than discussing the sermon with your kids this week, find a way to practice it. This week when your kids make a mistake or screw up – instead give grace and talk about it. Maybe you take their punishment for them, you clean up the mess, or you let them off the hook. Just make sure you share with them why you are doing it and why it matters.

Challenge for this Week: Give grace this week

November 25, 2013 by Andrew Mills

The Challenge of Grace

This week we are going to be looking at a really important but a challenging topic. We are going to be looking at grace. We are specifically going to be looking at the parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 28 and how it should shape our lives.

So to get us started on thinking about grace, I want to post a rather lengthy, but very thought provoking passage on grace. It’s written by Jay Bakker and I want to post it to get us thinking about grace, and what it means. And then we’ll come back to this quote on Sunday.

So here it is and I hope it gets not only your mind but your heart thinking about what grace really is (p.s. I highlighted two of my favorite lines):

We cheapen grace when we make it temporary, a ticket to an afterlife; when we say grace gets you into heaven, but holiness is what is required of you now. If grace isn’t about ‘right now’, but instead about ‘in the future’ then we are tempted to make it something we can earn in the time between. We might not have earned gracebefore we received, but we think we have to continually earn it again now that it’s ours. We do this because we desperately want to have some control over grace. We want even the smallest ability to claim that we somehow earned this grace, that we’ve got it. Which in turn allows us to say that other people don’t have it. If we’ve earned grace, other people can fail to earn it. …But that’s not how grace works. It’s a pull on us that we surrender to. We have nothing to do with it… Christians are always looking for someone or something grace can’t cover. So we end up putting restrictions on grace…in order for grace to truly be grace, it has to extend to absolutely everyone, no matter what, no questions, no expectations. Otherwise we think that somehow by living a moral life, or giving to the poor or voting a certain way or dedicating our lives to a certain thing, we’ve deserved it… We never let grace overwhelm us…Rather than being humbled and baffled by grace, we draw lines around who is in and who is out and pretend we’ve done something to earn grace. Our fear that we are accepted no matter what leads us to restrict grace, to redefine it, as if somehow we could possibly understand or control grace… People will live untransformed by grace. Some will use it as an excuse to be uncaring. Others will use it as a license to sin. But none of them will ever be transformed through legalism…when they are transformed they will be transformed by grace… When we really understand it, we will always find grace offensive. And that’s exactly the way it should be. If we start to feel comfortable with grace, then we’ve lost what it really means.

What do you think? What lines do you like or wonder about?

November 22, 2013 by Andrew Mills

Long Days…And Gifts of Grace

This week I had a long day…I mean a really long day. Sometimes this happens. The day started out with nothing planned. But by the end of it I had met with upwards of 15 people, with 5 groups of people being in major crisis or really important decisions being made. Also, I’m an introvert which means I had really hit my quota of conversations for the day. I didn’t get home till it was well after dark and supper, and even then had a pile of emails and critical phone calls to return.

Have you ever had a day like this? A day that jumps out of nowhere. A day you didn’t plan for, and a day that just seems to keep going? Have you ever had God show up on a day like this? Were you looking for him in the midst of it?

Because here is the thing – this day was important. Every one of the meetings, prayers, and conversations was critical. There was nothing wasted in it, but it was long, it was tiring, and as I drove into my driveway, knowing it wasn’t even close to being finished, I was drained. On top of that I know that my wife had a long difficult day with the boys.

And as I get out of the car in the rain, and feeling drained, my neighbour walks up to me and says, “I hear you’ve had a really tough and long day. I’m here to watch your kids so your wife can have a break, and you can finish what you need to.”

How beautiful and amazing is that?

And I know the question you’re all asking, and the answer is “no”. No I’m not moving and you can’t have my neighbours. But it just reminded me of the beauty of community, of friends, of family. This is the type of community we dream of having, neighbourhoods we want to live in, and friends we want to have. So rather than dreaming about it, why not start to create it? Why not be the neighbour who shows up with help. The friend who gives when the day has been long.

Because I can tell you – it changed my night. It was still a long day, but I saw God all through it, especially in the help from my neighbour. So why not be that type of neighbour, the one who blesses and changes lives. Because I can tell you from personal experience – those types of neighbours matter.

November 7, 2013 by Andrew Mills

Finding God all Around Us

Today I want to just focus on a quote from Eugene Peterson that really spoke to me:

You would think that believing that Jesus is God among us would be the hardest thing. It is not. It turns out that the hardest thing is to believe that God’s work – this dazzling creation, this astonishing salvation, this cascade of blessings – is all being worked out in and under the conditions of our humanity: at picnics and around dinner tables, in conversations with bling beggars and suppurating lepers, at wedding sand funerals. Everything that Jesus does and says takes place within the limits and conditions of our humanity. No fireworks. No special effects. Yes, there are miracles, plenty of them. But because for the most part they are as much a part of the fabric of everyday life, very few notice. The miraculousness of miracles I obscured by the familiarity of the setting, the ordinariness of the people involved. (Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in 10 000 Places)

I’d encourage you to read it again, and again, and again until it starts to make sense and seep in.

If I were to summarize this whole paragraph and what it means I’d say this: We often miss the activity of God all around us, all around us. The point is that we often discount everyday regular life as a place where God is working. But the story of Jesus says that he is just as active in picnics, parties, and in people’s lives as he is in temples, miracles, and worship settings. The point is that sometimes we don’t see God working, because we aren’t looking where he works most: in everyday life.

It’s hard to believe that God works best and most often in the everyday rhythms of life. But this is precisely Peterson’s point. It’s not hard to believe that God is involved when a miracle happens. It’s harder to believe and perhaps see that God is involved in your conversation with the neighbor, cutting the grass, playing with your kids. But he is. He is there, so maybe we should start looking for him.

At least that’s what I got out of the quote…What about you?

October 9, 2013 by Andrew Mills