Introduction to Parables Series

Matthew 13:10-17, Judges 9:1-20

Once upon a time, a group of trees went out to anoint for themselves a king. They looked around and then leaned their branches in the direction of an olive tree, one from among their number, aiming them at him like long pointy fingers. They moved in closer and closer, now crowding the olive tree so much that they began to knock off some of its olives to the ground. They said, “Olive tree, you be our king.” The olive tree replied, “What, and give up providing my oil, sought after throughout the world by regular men and by lords? This is my purpose, to serve man in this way. I was never meant to rule over you. That is God’s job. No thanks.”

The trees looked around again and this time focused on a fig tree. Their branches began to move, and in a little while no longer aimed at the olive tree but instead pointed to the fig tree. Again they moved in closer and closer, now crowding the fig tree so much that some of its figs also fell to the ground. As one, they all said, “Fig tree, you be our king.” The fig tree replied, “What, and give up providing my tasty wonderful fruit loved throughout the world? This is my purpose, to serve man in this way. I was never meant to rule over you. That is God’s job. No thanks.”

He is Risen Indeed!

Resurrection Sunday: a day we celebrate the resurrected Lord. The Christian Resurrection Sunday greeting is: "He is Risen," with the response being "He is Risen Indeed!"

We celebrate Resurrection on Sunday because Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week.  The apostle John gives the best firsthand accounts of what took place that first Resurrection morning, and we will look at that in detail, but first we will look at what took place just after Jesus' body was taken down from the cross.

"At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.  Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there." --John 19:41-42

Dying to Win

As you can see in your bulletin, we are nearing the end of our Superheroes series – just one more message after today. I’ll confess that I’ve never been a great fan of fantasy superheroes. Most of the books that I enjoyed reading growing up were about more realistic characters – still heroic, many of them, but with courage and abilities that I felt I could aspire to. However, one of the main points of this whole series has been to point out how God’s definition of a superhero is in many ways completely different, sometimes even the opposite of how the world might imagine one to be. God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, as it says in 2 Corinthians 12. 

I’m convinced that God’s top superheroes are people that we never hear about. They’re not out there leaping tall buildings in a single bound. They are quietly living out God’s love and grace, faithfully reaching out day by day to the “least of these” that Jesus talked about. They will receive their reward in heaven; they don’t need to be recognized right now. In fact, I think we need to be careful about holding someone up as a spiritual superhero. Pride is such a pitfall. Any glory that a person receives diminishes what God receives. So if you do something good and no one notices, be glad! God sees – and that is what really matters.

Chi-Rho (XP) Men

So we’re continuing on with the series Superheroes in Christ.  Today’s title is Chi-Rho Men.  I think it’s important for us to explain where this title comes from.  What do we mean by saying Chi-Rho?

I was pondering how best to go about explaining this, and then unexpectedly I had some help from a source I would never have thought to consult:  our two year old son Elijah.

Back at the beginning of February, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the boys and I went up to Tallulah Gorge over in Georgia.  We had never been there, and it was a real treat. There’s an interpretive center (which means a gift shop, a small museum and some nature displays).  There are a variety of stuffed animals:  bears, birds, beavers, deer, and so on.

Kryptonite

Welcome! We are in the middle of our series entitled “Superheroes through Christ”. Today our title is “Kryptonite.” This is perhaps the first title in the series that requires a little bit of detailed knowledge about superheroes.

What is kryptonite? This goes back to one of the earliest modern superheroes, Superman. I have fuzzy memories as a little kid arguing with other little kids about who was the greatest superhero. Eventually we ended up arguing who was the greatest superhero other than Superman, because, at least in the small world of superheroes we knew about, nobody could touch Superman. He could do anything – even turn back time!

I think the writers of Superman realized that maybe they had made him too powerful, and that made stories about him kind of boring, so they invented kryptonite. Superman came from the planet Krypton (he had come from there to Earth as a baby), and for some reason I don’t remember, being in the presence of kryptonite, which was material from his home planet or solar system, made him become weak. In the presence of enough kryptonite, for a long enough time, he might even die! Of course, all the supervillains somehow managed to come up with kryptonite so that they could capture Superman (and so the stories could be exciting again).

Arch-Villains

Good morning and welcome!  We’re going to continue today with our superheroes series.  Over the last four weeks, we’ve talked about some of the amazing things that God has said about us, those who believe in Him.  “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Mark 9:23

We talked about how we are called to believe what God has said about us.  Carl shared Philippians 4:13 and John 15:5, how we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us and how we can do nothing apart from Christ. 

Our greatest superpower is?  Love.  (I Corinthians 12:31-13:13)  “Love never fails.”

Origin Story

In comic book terminology, an origin story is an account or back-story revealing how a character or team gained their superpowers and/or the circumstances under which they became superheroes or supervillains.  (Wikipedia)  When it comes to movies it seems like everyone has jumped on the prequel bandwagon.  The earliest example I remember is Star Wars.  The characters probably aren’t considered superheroes but they seemed to start a trend where already existing megahits get a chance to extend their stay in the spotlight.  When I was a kid Star Wars 4, 5, and 6 came out.  It wasn’t until about 25 years later that they came out with episodes 1, 2 and 3.  Then you began to see other movies do the same, Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, to say a few.  Even Dumb and Dumber has a prequel.  But I guess I don’t consider Harry and Lloyd to be superheroes anyway.  Chuck Norris isn’t in any movies that have prequels because he existed for millions of years before prequels came into existence. 

As I was thinking about this idea of “Origin Story” it made me think about my own story.  I began to think about what I was like before Jesus forgave me and gave me His Holy Spirit.  In 2 Corinthians 5:16 Paul said, “ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”  When I encountered Christ He changed the way I viewed other people and changed the way I viewed Him.  So, what was my life like before Christ?

Power Source

Welcome! This week we continue our series, “Superheroes through Christ.” This is the third week of this series. John Farmer opened the series two weeks ago by referring to John 14:12, where Jesus says that whoever believes in Him would do the works He was doing and would do even greater things than these. Hard as it is to believe, these are Jesus’ own words. John went on to talk about our mission, how it includes things such as going and making disciples, obeying Christ’s commands, and much more, but how at a basic level it really all comes down to believing God. As it says in Hebrews 11:6, “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” The last passage quoted in this message was Mark 9:23, which says, “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Do you truly believe He exists? Do you truly believe that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him?

Last week we first spent some time really exploring the depth of God’s love for us. He made us in His image, and He loves us “just because,” not because of our works. He loved us before we did anything, and He continues to love us even after we fail and reject Him. He doesn’t just love us at a distance, either; He desires to walk with us, to be intimately involved in relationship with us. We are God’s poiema, His masterpiece, His love poem, and He puts us on display for all to see.

Under the Cape

Welcome to Week 2 in our series Superheroes through Christ! Our title today, “Under the Cape,” is a play on words from the phrase “Under the Hood,” referring to how you lift up the hood of a car to look at the engine, to see the part that matters most, the engine. Going with this analogy that we are somehow like superheroes, the question for today is, “What is really in us? What matters most? Who and what are we?”

Now, I happen to really like superhero stories – I guess that isn’t a great surprise given that we have tied this whole series to the superhero ideal. What about these stories do I like? There are probably many things, but I think I especially like to see how a superhero sometimes has to struggle to do the right thing, that it isn’t easy, but yet he still chooses to do what is right. I also like to see that even superheroes aren’t perfect; they aren’t good at everything, and sometimes things just don’t go their way. Yet they continue; yet they go on.

Your Misson

We’re starting a new series today.  I am pretty charged up about this whole series.  I was excited when I found out I would get the opening message for the series.  I’ve been accumulating ideas for weeks and months really.  The topic you already know.  We are going to talk about how we are, how we can be, superheroes through Christ.

I want to introduce you to a new hero of mine.  Here’s his picture:

His name is Zach Zehnder.  He’s a pastor from Florida.  He just set a world record for the longest speech marathon (i.e.-sermon).  His sermon was 53 hours and 18 minutes!  He had 200 pages of notes and 600 power point slides!  The focus of the effort was to raise money for a local drug treatment center.  He taught the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation!