Service 03-29-2009 – Jailhouse Rock musical

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In the audio podcast of this service, the Carol Choir presentation of “Jailhouse Rock” begins at 14 min 55 secs.

Many thanks to the kids who worked so hard to perform in the musical and all the parents/adults who worked to make this production a success.

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Service 03-22-2009

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In the audio podcast of this service, the Scripture Reading starts at 20 min 00 secs: Ephesians 2:1-10

The Sermon starts at 22 min 00 secs. “Earned and Deserved? Or, Given and Graced?”

Pastor Todd Buurstra

What do you do when you stand in front of a casket? Some kneel, some comment on smile and hairstyle, some bow in prayer. If its someone I know well, I often touch. When my kids were little I lifted them up so that they could touch to get the feel of death:

Leathery skin, inflexible limbs, rock hard stomach (your abs may be soft now, but…), cold.

So this is my image when I read 2:1, please join me… Now you may say, wait a minute, I don’t think I’ve ever been spiritually dead! Understood. We have no trouble seeing a pedophile priest/pastor as spiritually dead… or a financial guru who swindles his own Jewish people as spiritually dead, but you and me? And you have a theological point. For in baptism we confess that God is already active in a baby’s life. So maybe you haven’t sensed a time when you were spiritually dead, but how about spiritually flat-lined? Beep, beep, beep… as the life seeps out. Or even a spiritual dry spell—ever had one of those? I have them often. How do you come alive spiritually?

Lent is God’s way of reminding us that in sin we are dead. As dead as Jesus was.

Spiritually dead folk share a common worldview. I call it the I earned it I deserve it worldview. They’re entitled. This kills their spirits by subtracting God , the spirit’s O2.

In my family I’ve seen that a couple of ways. First, my Aunt Tressa had a welfare mentality. She hardly ever worked, because she was “sick.” So she wore my Mom’s hand me down dresses. She paid only $20/month rent for living in the family homestead. Never did she bring anything to family potlucks but she’d always say, I’ll just try a little bit of everything. I guess she thought she earned the right because of sick nerves and extreme thrift. I once saw her separate a two-ply napkin. Daily she used one teabag all morning and another all afternoon. My dad’s view was, She thinks the world owes her a living.

That’s the poor side of the I deserve it! worldview. I’ve also seen the richer side. I am a good person who works hard for my money so I deserve special treatment. Whether that be a Cadillac, or a political favor, or the last piece of pie, or the control of TV remote.

The common denominator of the spiritually flatlined worldview is that rich, poor, or middle class, the magic words thank you rarely roll off their lips because they deserve it.

V. 3 tells us that God has feelings about these prideful folk… children of wrath? This is sounding like hellfire and brimstone, right? But really God’s anger isn’t an eagerness to strike with lightning, but an injured love that says, How could you think you deserve everything when I made the sun rise this morning, I gave you the strength to work, NS I blessed you with your talents… and you think you spin the world? How could you?!

While Lent reminds us that we are dead in sin, Easter reminds us that the grateful come alive with Christ! Do you notice the terms: grace, mercy, love?

If the spiritually dead worldview says, It’s all about me; the spiritually alive worldview says, It’s all God’s gift. Normally we think of verse 8 as just talking about the grace of a me and Jesus, fire-escape from Hell, salvation. But the Greek word swzw, saved, is much broader. Swzw means heaven for you, but it also includes heaven for the whole church, and healing for your ingrown toenail, and hope for 401Ks, and help for Antarctican penguins. So this salvation is God gift in all of life because life is a gift.

Think about it. If I said to Natsuko last Wed on our 25th wedding anniversary, Yeah, we never would have made it if I wasn’t so patient. How would that go over? But if I say, You know, we had some hard times, like when we lost our first baby, but God has blessed us with two kids, with good jobs, a great church, and me with you…Which is better? The first one is not only spiritual death, but marital suicide. The second brings life.

And all God wants to help you come alive spiritually is a thank you:

Every morning God’s immeasurable grace makes that spring songbird chirp right outside your window. You can wake up saying, O God, it’s morning, or, O God, it’s morning!

Out of God’s rich mercy he gives you a kid who sings in Joyful Noise, and steals more

Coffee Hour cookies than you tell them to. On the way home you can say, How many

cookies did I tell you… or you can say, Thank you for singing for Jesus today.

Out of great love God provides the materials for the boxed mac and cheese Mom

slaves over for lunch today. You can burp, or you can pause to thank God for the

food, even food out of a box, and add in a thanks, Mom.

Out of immeasurable kindness God gave us Jesus. You may listen to your

pastor/teacher blab on about Jesus and yawn, or this Lent you can say, thank

you, Jesus for loving me so much that you went to the cross to save me.

Want to come alive spiritually? See all of life as God’s gift, and spend the rest of today thanking God and others as often as you can. That will increase your spiritual pulse!

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Service 03-15-2009

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In the audio podcast of this service, the Scripture Reading starts at 39 min 20 secs: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The Sermon starts at 41 min 00 secs. “The Message of the Cross”

Pastor Mark Swart

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Service 03/08/2009

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In the audio podcast of this service, the Scripture Reading starts at 22 min 30 secs: Mark 8:31-38

The Sermon starts at 24 min 20 secs. “Cross Culture”

Raise your hand if you are wearing a cross… Raise your hand if you sometimes wear a cross… I have a daily cross and a Sunday cross that I wear. Now for much of our culture the cross is just a fashion statement. There are pretty crosses that you buy in the store; there are nice crosses that you make your-self. But this blurry New Yorker cartoon says it all. Two women walking out of church say to their orthodox priest: Fantastic crucifix!

But Jesus’ question for us this morning is: What does my cross mean? I bet that your crosses are more than fashion statements, as are mine. The one that you see every Sunday comes from the single greatest influence on my faith—my grandmother. This reminds me of my heritage to follow Jesus. The cross that you see me wear every day comes from one of my children. Joy took them to the Noah’s ark sight and sound show in Lancaster, PA several years ago. And they came back with a present for me from their allowance. My first or second grader said, Dad, I thought you’d like it. It was cheap! So this is my heritage and this is my inheritor. Symbol of what’s been passed and being passed. What does the cross mean?

But before we get into the cross’ meaning Jesus tells us that it cannot be avoided.

Jesus teaches in v. 31… must… This is the first announcement of the crucifixion in Mark, and it’s announced as a must, dei, in the Greek, which carries the idea that God compels it.

Now, like Peter, we think the cross, or suffering, should be avoidable. Jesus, surely we can patch things up with the Jewish leaders by going a little softer on the Messiah thing, and then we can be on our merry way, huh? Get behind me, Satan!

I try to avoid the cross through positive thinking. Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better. Positive thinking, taken to the extreme, can simultaneously put your head in the clouds and in the sand. Or, we try to avoid the cross by voting for leaders who pamper us. Spend more on me. Cut my taxes. And then we wonder why the deficit doubled in the last 8 years, and may do more than that again. Or, we try to avoid the cross by investing with this guy. 15% return every year. Never a down year. Painless.

So if Jesus is indeed correct that everyone bears a cross, then what does it mean?

God intends real crosses, not decorative crosses, to be redemptive. Read with me Jesus’ profound words… How does cross-bearing, not just cross-wearing, save us? As I was thinking about this, this email came:

The cross that Jesus gives us prepares us for something. It can also be redemptive if we learn from it. Over the last 2 years I’ve lost more sleep over the death of our daughter church Ignite! than anything else. Often I prayed myself to sleep asking, Lord, help it to work out! But, as you may know, Ignite! never caught on so that it flickered out after 16 months. Not as much as David, our planter, but I was really disappointed. But to not languish in sadness we decided to write down some lessons. Here are the main ones:

Closer fit between NBRC, planter, community and vision;

Better NBRC prep in two ways by–a) recruiting a bigger core group before and,

b) putting the planter on staff here for a while to build more relationships towards a core;

and, wiser financial planning between salary and ministry money.

Now that may not make much sense to you, but we learned for next time through our pain.

Jesus’ cross redeems us by preparing us for other tough times, by teaching us, and by growing us closer to Him. Have you noticed that church has been a little fuller lately? Now either I’ve become a much better preacher since January, or America’s tough times are drawing people closer to God. As much as you might think its my preaching, I believe its our national hurt. Folks are aching for God’s hope right now. When the Dow Jones is down 52% then your faith better be up 60%. Ultimately only God can help us cope. Only God can give our leaders sufficient wisdom to restore confidence and empower creativity.

Lastly, the cross redeems us by showing us who we really are. Did you know that in Mark the first time that Jesus is publicly recognized as God’s Son is, yup, on the cross? The Roman centurion watched Jesus die exclaiming… And so it is that the cross shows us who we really are—sinners in need of God’s forgiving love. For it is here that Jesus died bearing the punishment of our sin so that we might live forever. May you know this!

So, in our culture the cross looks nice around necks, but more than a decoration, its a way of life. A way of living cross-culturally. For the church’s culture is a cross culture.

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The Messenger March 2009

Click to read North Branch Reformed Church’s monthly newsletter:
The Messenger March 2009

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The Shepherd’s Kids and Young Adult News March 2009

Click to read the latest issue of North Branch Reformed Church’s monthly newsletter for children, teens and college students:
The Shepherd’s Kids and Young Adult News March 2009

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Event Calendar March 2009

Click here to see our scheduled events for March 2009.

Service 03/01/2009

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In the audio podcast of this service, the Scripture Reading starts at 30 min 20 secs: Genesis 9:8-17

The Sermon starts at 32 min 00 secs. “Building a 21st Century Ark”

Baptism is a dangerous business! Sure, I realize that most of the time we want the baptism of the cute and cuddly baby to help us feel safe in God’s love. And that’s important! Often moms dress their cherished child in a white christening gown to symbo-lize the beauty of Jesus’ forgiving love. But baptism is also dangerous. The Eastern Orthodox church symbolizes this by taking the whole baby and dunking her underwater in a big baptismal tank. And so instead of cooing happily the baby comes up sputtering and crying! The church’s version of waterboarding. They do this because baptism reminds us not only of water’s constructive cleansing abilities, but also of its destructive drowning abilities, like Noah’s flood. Symbolizing the flood, God wants the baptism waters to show our need to die to sin so that the rest of creation can live. For Noah’s tale is an ecological story that calls us to build a 21st century ark for human babies and hyena babies, but how?

Yet not all Christian leaders agree. Jerry Falwell claims… This reflects our traditional view of God’s covenant as man-centered. Like verse 9 God promises to love ME in baptism. But it continues in verse 10… This leads to the belief that God’s covenant of baptism is both for me and for creation! And that Tyler is called to live more selflessly for all creation. As Richard Cizik, known as the Green evangelist, says…

In the traditional man centered covenant WWJD means?… In the more biblical creation included covenant this means?… That’s why when Rev. Sita Hofstra visited us from the Netherlands last year, and we were following a pastor to a meeting, she said, “My people would consider that a sin.” What? I asked. “A preacher driving an SUV.” Oh.

So in our old man-centered theology we said, It’s my land and I’ll do with it whatever I want! Even if that meant chopping down trees for a shed because we have too much stuff. In the new, but really original, creation-included covenant we say, It’s God’s land, and I am just managing it for the good of creation. So we may plant trees instead.

Former Senator Gary Hart states, Of our $500 billion military budget…half goes to protect oil supplies. If that’s true then its baptism at its laziest. Don’t inconvenience me because God loves ME. That’s why Jim Wallis envisions a more dangerous baptism to deny self for the good of all God’s creatures when he calls us to green energy in saying:

Wouldn’t [energy transformation] be better than more destruction…?

So what’s a good baptized Christian to do? Live dangerously. Since a safe and secure Me-centered baptism has endangered God’s wonderful handiwork, Heaven’s artist calls us to deny ourselves in a creation-included covenant so that all can live. How do we do that? Build a 21st century ark by making room for God’s bees and birchtrees.

How do we build a 21st century version of the ark? Let’s make room for creation in our relationship with God by giving up one energy consuming practice for Lent. How about pledging to turn out lights when we don’t need them. Did you know that Pastor Mark hardly ever has his office light on? And that Bridgewater-Raritan school district has cut its energy consumption by 10% and saved $300,000 by challenging kids to turn off lights and computers? In that spirit here is what I’ll give up for our Creator for Lent: I’ll pledge to leave my computer desk light off because the penguins need their polar icecap more than I need my coal-produced electric light. What will you do? And, if I stub my toe in a darker office? Well, baptism is a dangerous thing! Amen.

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