Our series is on how Jesus resets our goals.  We’re basing this on something Jesus taught in his sermon on the mount.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

(Matthew 6:25-33 ESV)

Jesus was saying that we can get so busy and consumed by the day to day concerns of life, we lose track of the point.  What was the point?  We were created for relationship with God, and one another.  All humans gave that up by focusing on ourselves instead, and there is evidence in the world’s brokenness.  We can see it in broken relationships with ourselves, one another, our natural world, and with God himself.  But God offers his love to us all the same.  He invites us to live in his kingdom – to be in a relationship with him as our Lord – thanks to what Jesus did on the cross.

Last week, we learned how Jesus and his death on the cross give us the opportunity to reset life.  His death and resurrection reset the world, since death was the most visible consequence of our sin and rebellion against God.  He made it possible for us to live in Kingdom of God now, and for eternity.

But we have lots to do.  Jesus isn’t saying we should quit our jobs, run around naked and hungry.  He’s not saying food, shelter, clothes are a bad thing.  They are all part of his creation, like us, and he has plans for it all.

He is just saying that we shouldn’t worry about such things.  We shouldn’t be consumed by them.  We shouldn’t let them distract us from our life’s true purpose of living in relationship with God, and one another.  We shouldn’t let worrying about little goals get in the way of life’s big goal.

Question: When does careful planning turn into worry and get in the way of life goals?

Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.

Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting tomorrow night, January 22nd. Register for you and a friend today!

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - February 24, 2014

Monday - A New Idea - Reset Sex and Marriage

Reset

Hi! Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan, you host for the daily challenges. These daily challenges are meant to help people explore what it means to follow Jesus even during our busy commuting lifestyle. If you've never looked into what that means in the first place, I'd really encourage you, check out our Christianity 101 course first. You can take it live in-person or through our mobile app; great introduction to the basic concepts of what it means to follow Jesus that we try to build on in the Daily Challenges. Every day and week, we follow a rhythm to help us, as one community, learn what it means to follow Jesus even when we're not physically together. Every Monday,we introduce the idea for the week. Every Tuesday, we see what the Bible has to say. Every Wednesday, we allow ourselves to be challenged in our thoughts. Every Thursday, we try to apply it and live it out in our lives. Every Friday, we take time to pray and reflect on the topic. Saturday is a day for rest and then Sunday is a day for community. We're going to start gathering together as one community soon. We just recently had a great baptism service and celebration where a number of our members came together in one place to worship God. We're going to do that more and more often over this year. So, stay tuned for some of our upcoming gatherings. We're in a series right now called, "Reset." We're looking at how deciding to follow Jesus resets everything in our lives. We've looked at a number of areas that it impacts. This week we're going to look at how following Jesus impacts our view of sexuality and marriage. Last week, we saw how following Jesus means we see the body and food differently, and how they are good things God created, but can be abused when used in the ways God didn’t create them to be used. We also saw how following Jesus means his Holy Spirit lives in us, which is why our bodies can be called a temple. This means we can’t pretend to own our bodies, as followers of Jesus, but instead need to show reverence to God’s presence in us by caring for these bodies, using them as their creator intended. This is going to be a helpful way to see our sexuality, as well. The passage from the Bible’s first letter to the Corinthians that we explored talked about food and the body as a temple, but Paul, the author, was not really making a point about food. He was using food as an example to show how the Corinthian Christians were abusing their gift of sexuality. He challenges them not to be distracted, and think that sex is the most important thing in their lives, nor their source of identity, comfort or security. He wants them to stay focused on God, and see all other things in life through that lens. He wants them to think of themselves as people on a journey with a purpose, which necessarily means they will be different than those around them who are not on the same journey. That’s hard in our world – particularly with sexuality, because we are a culture obsessed with sex, and it’s easy to forget there is more to us than biology! Some Christians or churches have responded by never talking about it, making it seem like sexuality and our bodies have nothing to do with God. But Paul takes neither approach; he says our bodies matter to God, because we matter to God. See attached video, or click here: https://vimeo.com/664454 Sex is clearly on people’s minds. One survey asked Canadians how often they’d like to have sex, more than half of Canadians polled said they’d like at least twice a week. 20% of men said they’d like sex every day, but only 3% actually experience it. There are some limits in people’s minds: In a Today’s Parent magazine survey, 82% of parents say sleep is more important than sex. The magazine readily admitted their sample was skewed heavily toward parents of young children, and primarily women. On that note, fifty-seven percent of U.S. women would choose their mobile device over sex, according to another survey. These represent some curious limits on how much sex people want, but God puts some serious limits on sex, that we’ll explore later this week. In the meantime, here’s a question to consider: Question: In what ways is our culture obsessed with sex? Think of commercials, businesses, events, etc. Does our culture place any limits on sex? Well, have a great discussion. Don't forget, we're reading the Bible in sync as a community. So, check our website or app to see what today's Bible reading is. Have a great one.

From Series: "Reset"

When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again? The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate. What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives: Reset: Goals Reset: Time Reset: Money Reset: Work Reset: Body & Food Reset: Sex & Marriage Reset: Family Reset: Compassion Reset: Nature Reset: Society Reset: Death Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.

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