Pay Attention To Yourself - YouTube Snowmass Chapel

Sermon by Dr. Robert de Wetter Senior Pastor, Snowmass Chapel Sunday, May 18, 2014 Sermon Notes: Pay Attention to Yourself I. Stories of when the letter of the law was followed instead of the intent. Are ethics and rules set in stone or are there times when such things are dependent upon the situation? II. Jesus was surrounded by those were incapable of seeing God doing something extraordinarily new and out of the box. Their thinking was so narrow, they failed to grasp that Jesus who stood right in front of them was the very Messiah they had been waiting for. III. Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. See them as Part 1 and Part 2 of the story. IV. The challenges of early Christian communities. A. Grew quickly. B. Melding of cultures. C. Caring for those who joined the community alone. D. How to share possessions and resources. E. Managing all of the logistics. F. 12 Apostles role was to teach and preach. No way could meet all the other needs. So they appointed Deacons or servants. Stephen being one of the first. V. Stephen A. Stephen was in charge of distributing food. B. One of the first Christian Martyrs to die for Jesus. Note that the early Christian martyrs did not kill others in the name of God but rather died at the hands of those who persecuted people of Christian faith. C. Challenged by non-Christians for his words and actions. D. Eventually brought up on charges of blasphemy. Taken to the Sanhedrin or the Highest Jewish Court. Asked if charges were true and Stephen answered by telling the story of God from Abraham to Jesus. E. The first part of what he says does not get him into trouble. It is when he slams his fellow Jews for not accepting Jesus as Messiah, that God is everywhere, not just the Temple, and that they are resisting the Holy Spirit and being thick headed, that causes his condemnation and death by stoning. VI. Key Take Away Points from the story of Stephen. A. Certainty. i. Certainty can be a good thing, but too much certainty can be dangerous and in fact lead us away from being faithful to God. Sometimes when we resist something new or resist change, it impedes our ability to see God acting. ii. There are some things we can believe with confidence, even certainty. Jesus was God in the flesh. Jesus died for our sins. Jesus was bodily raised from the dead. iii. But there are lots of others things about our Christian faith and tradition we need to be cautious about when it comes to absolute certainty. Things that are ripping lots of churches apart. Example of when hymns were introduced. B. Groupthink. i. Irving Janis said "The main principle of groupthink...is : The more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making in-group, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against out-groups." ii. The Sanhedrin was a tight knit group who generally viewed things in very similar ways. When Stephen came along and offered another perspective, they killed him to rid themselves of hearing his point of view. iii. The story of Stephen points to the importance of being cautions about jumping on the bandwagon and disregarding or not listening to the voice of an outlier. C. Non-negotiables. i. Stephen lived by some non-negotiables. ii. Compelled to ask some questions. What are my non-negotiables? What am I not willing to do, period? What must I do, period? Am I clear on my non-negotiables? Do they direct my life, my decisions, and my actions? Do I have too many non-negotiables? Too few? Are there areas in my life in which I need to come up with some? iii. We can either go through out days reacting to what comes our way, or let our non-negotiables direct our way. iv. God wants us to live with joy, health, commitment keeping, faith, love, a forgiving heart, and integrity, that God calls us to be overtly aware of our non-negotiables. v. Caveat. It is possible to have too many non-negotiables in life. It is possible to be too inflexible and rigid and narrow. It is possible to put the letter of the law ahead of the spirit of the law in ways that are destructive for others and ourselves. It is possible for our non-negotiables to get in the way of what God is trying to do in our lives? VII. What Paul would say to us based on his words to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16. A. Paul wrote. Pay attention to yourself. B. Pay attention to what it is you are certain about. Are you too certain about too many things or not certain enough about a few things? C. Pay attention to getting on the bandwagon. Be careful about groupthink and disregarding the voice of the outlier. D. Pay attention to your non-negotiables and all the related questions raised around this concept.

Pay Attention To Yourself - YouTube
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