My Time

The advertising, sales, and marketing industries have figured out that one of our most valuable possessions is our time. I made a list of 50 supposed time saver things that I could think off the top of my head. This is by no means in order or a complete list:

1.   Self-service gas pumps 
2.   Self-service checkout lines at the grocery store
3.   Washing machines & clothes dryers that can send a text message when done
4.   Dishwashers
5.   Microwave ovens

My Gift

'Tis the season for this topic!  There is no better time to think and talk about gifts than at Christmas.  For the vast majority of Americans, Christmas is all about the gifts.  Find the right gifts.  Balance the gifts out exactly between everyone.  Lots of people take a look at what others are doing.  Trying to be consistent with what others are doing.  Keep up with the Joneses.  I don’t want anyone to be disappointed or left out.

On the other side, how do we think about gifts?  What are we expecting?  How will we react to what we get?  How will react if we don’t get what we expect?  Gifts are so much a part of the American Christmas season that we respond to it as a right or an entitlement.  Gifts are what we do at Christmas!  The retail economy of our nation keys off of gift giving as their most profitable time of the year.

My Rights

Welcome! Today we continue our series entitled Mine, in which we explore the Biblical standards of ownership, stewardship, and lordship. Today’s message focuses on rights.

Although the concept of “rights” is muted in some cultures around the world, here in America, it is huge. You could almost say it is in our DNA – it is in our Declaration of Independence, almost from the very beginning:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

My Stuff

Welcome! Today we continue our series entitled Mine. In this series we are exploring the implications of ownership, stewardship, and lordship in various areas of our lives. Last week Tim did a wonderful job investigating this topic in the area of relationships. Tim pointed out our relationship with Christ is to be above all other relationships; Jesus uses some extremely provocative wording about this, saying that we are to “hate” our mothers, fathers, spouses, children, and so on, in comparison to our love for Christ. We also looked at the account of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac; apart from the messianic foreshadowing of this event, it was a test of Abraham, to see if his love for and trust in God went beyond even his love of his long-awaited son. We of course are to love our families, but God wants it to be a godly love, an agape love, not a selfish love. And a godly love of others keeps God above every human relationship. 

My Relationships

Today we start a new series of 5 messages relating to the issue of lordship and ownership. The image I have in my mind starting out is of a toddler holding a favorite thing, maybe a toy, yelling, “Mine! Mine!” – screaming and struggling all the more insistently if someone would try to take it away. We smile at the thought that a small child would consider that they actually own anything, since everything they have has been given to them. But actually, too often as adults even we are guilty of exactly the same behavior before God, who has given us everything. What does it actually mean that Jesus is Lord? How should that affect our attitude toward the things that we consider “ours” – our relationships, our stuff, our rights, our gifts, our time? Those are the topics of these 5 messages. Today we will look at relationships. Do our kids actually belong to us? What rights do we have in our family? What does it mean for me to love my neighbor as myself? What relationships do we have that might even be idols, getting in way of our relationship with God? If Jesus is Lord, he needs to be Lord of everything in our lives. Everything. How much are we willing to trust him?