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“Ephesians - Paul's ” Theme: The Letters of Paul Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-19

Things I’d like to remember from today’s sermon ______

Family/Community Activity for the week: Read :12-14. Paul talks about the in his letters. Explain to the younger members of your family that promised to be with us through the Holy Spirit, and compared the Spirit to the wind. Both are always with us. Even though we can’t see them, we can see and feel what they do. Take a walk together. Talk about what the wind is doing. Watch it move the trees, grass, water, your hair, papers, etc. Spend some prayer time outside feeling the wind and watching it move things around. Remind everyone that the Holy Spirit, being God, will only move in ways that are for our good. Encourage your family members to remember the Holy Spirit whenever they feel the wind. Say a prayer of thanks for the Holy Spirit and for the wind. Meditation Moments for Monday, September 11 - Read Psalm 139:13-14 and :1-22. We all know persons who walks around as if they were puffed up with air, proud of their bank account statement, their title, their looks, their ability. Sometimes, we’re even those people! St. Augustine once said that pride is “the love of one’s own excellence.” This goes beyond simply healthy self-esteem. This is a perspective that says we are somehow superior. Take comfort in the fact that you are valuable and precious to God. But so is everyone else. • What are your strengths, from God’s perspective? Are you ever tempted to think and act as though those strengths make you superior to other people? Are there places in your life where you are masking insecurities with pride? Are you able to be happy when someone else succeeds or gains praise, or does it make you feel threatened? • What’s the difference between healthy self-esteem and pride? Can you recall a time when you successfully overcame a sense of unhealthy pride? If so, what helped you to do that?

(Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org Do you have anyone in your life who can honestly challenge you on being prideful? Or if anyone challenges you, do you immediately become defensive? Prayer: Creator of the universe, thank you for the gift of life you’ve entrusted to me. Help me find security in you and free me from the need to feel superior. Amen. Tuesday, September 12 - Read Ephesians 3:1-21. Paul’s letters give us a rich record of much of what he taught about prayer. In the second half of this chapter, he asks lyrically that the Holy Spirit, dwelling in our hearts, would give all believers the power to grasp the vastness of God’s love. Then he ended with a glowing expression of praise. • Read verse 12 again. When have you felt you were in God’s presence? What helped you feel the presence of God? Are you willing to boldly walk into God’s presence today through prayer? • Paradoxes bother most of us, but Paul’s faith happily embraced the paradoxes of God’s world rather than avoiding them. Here he prayed that all believers would be able “to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” How have you been able to “know” God’s love even though it reaches beyond the bounds of logic and intellectual expression? How can your heart know things that stretch your mind to its limits? Prayer: God, help me to feel your presence in this time of prayer, so I might know how wide, how long, how high, and how deep your love is for me, and that is too great to fully understand. Wednesday, September 13 - Read :1-27 and Hebrews 12:12-15. The apostle Paul quoted Psalm 4:4 from the Greek translation of the Old Testament (called the Septuagint). Then, as though he realized that “be angry without sinning” might be a little hard to apply in real life (“How do I do that?”), he added his timeless personal advice: “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.” The Message put it in more modern English: “Don’t go to bed angry.” • Anger is one of four basic human emotions. Paul linked teaching about honesty with its call to “be angry without sinning.” If we haven’t learned to deal with angry feelings honestly within ourselves, we often try to hide them (“grrr—no, I’m not angry”). When have you seen a failure to honestly face anger be harmful to a relationship? How do you see the difference between “I feel angry because…” and “You always make me mad by…”? • Anger becomes dangerous, to us and our relationships, when we let it fester. Hebrews warned readers to see “that no root of bitterness grows up.” One counselor said, “Bitterness is anger grown stale.” Ephesians 4 knew that “anger is natural… because people hurt each other in many ways… Paul wants them to deal with it right away so that no one sins against another by feeding on that anger and doing further damage.” What is helping you grow in recognizing your anger, and then promptly dealing positively with it? Prayer: Lord Jesus, anger, in me or in others, can be scary. Give me the courage to recognize and deal with it in a healing way whenever it happens. Amen. Thursday, September 14 - Read Ephesians 4:29-32. This passage listed keys that can move God’s people toward being better partners in relationships. Treating one another in un- Christlike ways (“bitterness, losing your temper, anger, shouting, and slander, along with every other evil”) is bad for relationships. Inviting to change your life from the inside out opens you to bearing fruits like kindness, compassion and a heart able to forgive. God’s gift of such qualities empowers us to build durable relationships. • Scholar N. T. Wright said, “You should behave as those on whom God’s Holy Spirit has placed God’s mark. The word Paul uses could refer to the ‘seal’ or official stamp on a document…. The mark indicates who it belongs to and what it’s for…. People who are enslaved to anger and malice may think they are ‘free’ to ‘be themselves’, but they are in bondage. If we are marked out by the Spirit’s personal presence living in us, think how sad it makes that Spirit if we behave in ways which don’t reflect the life and love of God.” How would your interactions be different if, before speaking or texting, you asked, “Does this give grace? Does it build up? Can I picture Jesus saying or sending this?” (Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org Prayer: Dear God, give me the courage to speak truth in love, the humility to say I’m sorry when I’m wrong and the heart to forgive others who admit a wrong. Amen. Friday, September 15 - Read :1-33. “Submit” is a loaded word today, often seen as “abject.” In Paul’s day, Greek, Roman and Hebrew cultures took it as a given that women submitted to men. Scholar N. T. Wright wrote, “Paul has a quite different way of going about addressing the problem of gender roles. He insists that the husband should take as his role model, not the typical bossy or bullying male of the modern, or indeed the ancient, stereotype, but Jesus himself…. If husbands – not least Christian husbands! – had even attempted to live up to this wonderful ideal, there would be a lot less grumbling about bossy or bullying men in the world today.” Read as a whole, this passage set a high standard of mutual love and respect for both partners in any marriage, especially when you consider just before it Paul talks about living in the Light and by the Spirit’s power. • What do you believe it meant for a husband to love his wife “just like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her”? “Love” (Greek agape) meant intentionally chosen attitudes and actions, not an emotional state that came and went. How did this command compare with the “lord of the manor” image many husbands then (and now) held? How did this image challenge husbands to act when their wives’ needs called for them to give up some of their own comfort or power? • Although in spots the echoed some standard cultural language, it never spoke to only one partner in a relationship. Ephesians 5:21 said, “Submit to each other.” Submission” was a mutual duty, not something only a wife gave while the husband took. (The same was true, by the way, for parents and children.) How have you seen mutual “submission” work in healthy relationships? Prayer: Lord Jesus, you washed the feet of stubborn disciples. You asked God to forgive Roman soldiers executing you. Help me in all relationships, especially the closest ones, to be a person growing more like you each day. Amen. Saturday, September 16 -:1-23. As a prisoner, Paul was with Roman soldiers and he may even have been handcuffed to one of them at times. He used each part of the soldier’s armor as a metaphor for some aspect of Christian faith, except for prayer (verse 18). Prayer was not “part,” but all-inclusive for Paul. He wrote at various times in his letters to pray at “all occasions,” “all kinds of prayers and requests,” and for, “all of God’s people.” He asked humbly for people to prayer for him as well, that he would speak for God clearly and fearlessly. • Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz ends with this invitation, a good invitation with which to end this study on Ephesians: “If you haven’t done it in a while, pray and talk to Jesus. Ask him to become real to you. Ask him to forgive you of self-addiction, ask him to put a song in your heart. I can’t think of anything better that could happen to you than this.” What have you learned from this study in Ephesians to help you transform, and become more like Jesus? Prayer: Thank you God for wanting me to be more than I am and seeing what I can be. May I be bold enough to reach for that and become more like Christ in the days ahead through my prayers and actions. Amen

(Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org

Theme: Transformed by the Letters of Paul “Ephesians – Paul’s Doxology” Sermon preached by Jeff Huber September 9-10, 2017

Scripture: Ephesians 3: 14-19 VIDEO Sermon Intro – Curt and Marilyn Johnson SLIDE “Ephesians – Paul’s Doxology” Last year about this time I was with Curt and Marilyn and many others from our church experiencing the Journeys of Paul. In this series of sermons on the Letters of Paul we have been talking about transformation because Paul wanted people to experience the transformation that comes from receiving Christ in our lives, and as Curt and Marilyn shared, being in the places where Paul traveled was in many ways transformational because the letters of Paul really come to life. Today we’ll take you to Ephesus through some video footage and photos that I hope will bring this letter to life for you as well. I want to invite you to take out of your bulletin your Message Notes and Meditation Moments. Your Message Notes have a place for you to write things down and your Meditation Moments are a chance for you to do an activity with a group or in your family and have a reading plan for you to read Galatians on your own this week. Our goal in this series of sermons is to try and help us understand the historical setting of the letters of Paul so that when we read them they really come alive. These are powerful and profound living words that we sometimes can miss the meaning of because we don’t understand the background. God longs to speak to us through them and we can best hear God if we understand the historical context and why Paul was writing each of these letters. Let’s begin by learning a bit about Ephesus in the first century. First, it’s important to know that Ephesus was the 4th largest city of the Roman World after Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. It was at a central geographical location so the Gospel could be spread to all of Asia as it was a port city on the Aegean Sea which helped connect Rome and Greece to Asia. Let’s take a look at the map of Paul’s Third Missionary Journey that’s in your bulletin and on the screen. GRAPHIC Map of Paul’s Third Journey Notice that Paul went by land to Ephesus which was about 700 miles. While it would have been faster to go by boat, going by foot enabled him to stop at the churches in Galatia we looked at last week. What we know is that Paul stayed in Ephesus for a total of three years, making it the longest he stayed in any of the cities where he started churches. Some of the best and well excavated ancient ruins are in Ephesus so I wanted to share with you some of the images. VIDEO Footage of Main Street Promenade You can see shops on either side with wagon wheel ruts down the roman road. The Temple to the Emperor Domitian and a water feature to the Emperor Trajan were eventually built in Ephesus. You also can see one of the engineering marvels of the roman world, these

(Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org public latrines. GRAPHIC Roman Toilets I showed this to kids at our Vacation School this summer when we took them to ancient Rome and they were disgusted to learn there were no dividers between the toilets! And, to clean yourself after going to the bathroom, they did not have toilet paper, so you would dip a sponge that was on the end of stick into vinegar and water that is in that ditch in front of the toilets and use that to clean yourself! VIDEO Luxury Villas There is an indoor excavation site that allows you see luxury villas built in Ephesus that are stacked on top of each other like apartments, complete with tile mosaics built into the walls and floors. At the end of the promenade you can see the library of Celsius built around 110 CE, or about 50 years after the time of Paul. GRAPHIC Library of Celsius This library contained 15,000 scrolls and was the second largest in the Roman world after the library in Alexandria. It is built next to an area where Paul would preach and teach from around 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. VIDEO Agora Public Shopping Area You can read about this time in Paul’s journeys in Acts 19, where his preaching in this area of Ephesus had a profound affect. BIBLE 19 A number of believers who had been practicing sorcery brought their incantation books and burned them at a public bonfire. The value of the books was several million dollars. 20 So the message about the Lord spread widely and had a powerful effect. You would buy these incantations to help you get pregnant or have a good harvest and the spells that were burned were worth approximately $5 million! The gospel is changing people because there are things in their life and culture which are not compatible with this new faith they are experiencing. What are things in our lives which are not compatible with the Christian Faith? SLIDE What promises life in our world, but really doesn’t bring life? SLIDE Is there anything in my life which needs to be burned? That’s a more personal way to ask that question. What is it that is holding me back? I think of the woman who came to my office when I was a youth director more than 20 years ago. She had been convinced to join a strange cult as a teenager and now that her daughter was in elementary school, she was doubting all this strange stuff she had been encouraged to do, especially when they were calling for her to harm her child. She showed up at our church because we were hosting a conference on domestic violence and abuse, and after turning to Christ she brought all these incantation books and strange artifacts and drug paraphernalia used in rituals and we put them in a large metal trash can and burned them. She looked at the few of us gathered with tears in her eyes and said, “Am I really free?” She was, and by God’s grace and the support of a Stephen Minister who had been down that same road, she put her life back together. Before we leave Ephesus and turn to the letter Paul wrote, it’s also important to note that this city was at the center of worship of the goddess Artemis, also known as Diana. The temple built to Artemis, which is now a pile of rubble, was known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Here’s a picture of the goddess I took while at the museum in Ephesus. I bought my own replica so I could share it with you all. (Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org GRAPHIC Artemis Ephesians were known as the keepers of the temple of Artemis and made lots of money selling silver figurines of her likeness. She was known as the goddess of life and fertility, represented by the many breasts depicted on her body. People would place these in homes and in their businesses, but after Paul begins the church in Ephesus, both believers AND non- believers stop buying the figurines, which cut into the local economy. Here’s what we read in Acts 19, verse 23 and following. BIBLE 23 About that time, serious trouble developed in Ephesus concerning the Way. 24 It began with Demetrius, a silversmith who had a large business manufacturing silver shrines of the Greek goddess Artemis. He kept many craftsmen busy. 25 He called them together, along with others employed in similar trades, and addressed them as follows: “Gentlemen, you know that our wealth comes from this business. 26 But as you have seen and heard, this man Paul has persuaded many people that handmade gods aren’t really gods at all. And he’s done this not only here in Ephesus but throughout the entire province! 27 Of course, I’m not just talking about the loss of public respect for our business. I’m also concerned that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will lose its influence and that Artemis—this magnificent goddess worshiped throughout the province of Asia and all around the world—will be robbed of her great prestige!” 28 At this their anger boiled, and they began shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29 Soon the whole city was filled with confusion. Everyone rushed to the amphitheater, I thought I would take you into that theatre in Ephesus, which is at the end of the Agora. VIDEO Ephesus Theatre GRAPHIC Theater Panorama This experience of Paul in Ephesus begs several questions of us. SLIDE How does being a Christian change our economics? Paul longs for us to experience transformation, a change of heart, so we can really experience the freedom of the living Christ, which stands in opposition of the prisons of this world that can be formed around our stuff. Let me put this question another way. I met with a business owner many years ago who came to faith in Christ and realized his business, which he had poured his life into, brought pain and hurt to others and their families. Instead of selling the business, he dismantled it and sold off the parts. SLIDE What are the idols I’m spending time and money on that need to go? Maybe it’s pornography, or alcohol, or technology or anything else that you are tempted to put first in your life. Paul writes his letter to the Ephesians from a prison cell, we believe in Rome, to encourage those who are struggling with this very question. There is no great conflict going in the church as we find in some of his other letters, instead he simply reminding them of what he taught while he was in Ephesus. This is why you find several instances where Paul says he has great affection for the people in this church. And right in the middle of his letter, we find the most appropriate words than can be used to encourage us in our faith. We call it a “doxology.” SLIDE Paul’s Doxology – Ephesians 3: 14-21 (Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org A doxology is a liturgical formula of praise to God. We sing one every week in our traditional service. Paul’s Doxology is also the purpose verse for our college ministry here at First United Methodist Church: Rooted. What I want to do is walk you through this text because it is a great formula for turning to God in the midst of anything in life we are going through, and it really can be considered a prayer for spiritual growth and transformation. This was meant to be a call to prayer that we say together in the community. Let’s say the first two line together. BIBLE 14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. This first movement of the doxology is to recognize God’s greatness and mercy and that our God is the creator of all things. Paul begins this prayer with the words, "When I think of all this…" (the Greek is charin) since he is referring back to the Ephesians Christians' destiny to reveal God's plan to spiritual beings in heaven and on earth. Paul probably mentions his kneeling posture to emphasize his earnestness in this prayer. We are being reminded that God is going to use the imperfect and unexpected to do great things. BIBLE 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. We talked last week about the Holy Spirit and how Paul longs for us to turn to the Spirit for wisdom and strength. We are promised that God will be our resource and be with us always. Notice the basis of Paul's confidence in God's ability to answer prayer abundantly is that God is “glorious,” which means, “fabulous wealth, unfathomable resources, unimaginable riches” and the power they create. You can see this theme in several of Paul's letters (Ephesians 1:7,18; 2:7; 3:8; Romans 9:23; Philippians 4:19; Colossians 1:27). Often, we pray out of desperation, but Paul encourages us to pray based on our belief in God's inexhaustible supply. When we can see that in our mind's eye, our faith can rise to the occasion without hindrance of worrying about how God will ever be able to answer our prayer. Paul reminds us that it is about trust and faith, and we can claim those even in the midst of uncertainty and doubt. To that end of strengthening our faith, Paul prays that God will, “empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.” He uses two power words in this verse. The verb “empower is the Greek krataioō, which means “to become strong.” “Inner strength,” is dunamis, which translates to, “power, might, strength, force, capability.” It’s where we get the word DYNAMITE! Together the words mean, “to become a strong and powerful force.” This spiritual empowerment comes about though his Holy Spirit and it happens inside. When we turn towards God, a new birth occurs and the Holy Spirit fills our human heart, making us alive to God. Let’s say verse 17 together, which is our memory verse for this week. BIBLE 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. Heart, (kardia, from which we get our word "cardiac",) is commonly used in the New Testament to refer to the “center and source of the whole inner life, with its thinking and feeling.” Our prayer for transformation is that Christ would live, dwell, reside and settle down in our hearts…taking up permanent residence, as opposed to just dropping in for a visit or pitching a tent. Paul is praying that the work of Christ in us might continue and deepen and grow and plant roots. Robert Boyd Munger wrote a short booklet entitled My Heart, Christ's Home (1951) that has been widely reprinted. In it he compares the heart to a home. When Christ comes into the heart he is invited into the living room as an honored guest and asked to be seated and to feel

(Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org right at home. But when Christ starts poking into closets and other rooms in the house, it is obvious that the host isn't prepared for him. These rooms where we hide stuff are off-limits to the influence of Christ. “But you asked me to live here, didn't you?” asks Christ. All of us have broken places and selfishness hidden even to ourselves. As Christ's Spirit permeates our entire being, we gradually must give more room for him—every closet and room, every drawer and chest. Not only does Christs know us more, but we know ourselves better and we become more and more filled with a , that is, we come to know him better and better. Theologically this is called "sanctification." It is a process. Paul is praying here that the process might be accelerated in the Ephesian believers. For without sanctification, our view of God and our faith is so diminished and straitjacketed that we can hardly see God, nor can we be truly filled with the Spirit. We Christians often refer to ourselves as “Spirit-filled.” By this we can mean we have had a Pentecostal experience, or we had a powerful experience in worship or on a retreat or in some traumatic moment in our lives where we truly felt the presence of God. These can be wonderful and faith-expanding experiences. If we are not careful however, “Spirit-filled” can be deceptive and sometimes and even prideful jargon phrase. By definition, ALL Christians have the Spirit (:9b). Remaining filled with the Spirit requires a day-by-day surrender to God, a dealing with and giving up of sins that he reveals, and being stretched by God to open more to receive more of his infinite Being. Paul’s prayer is that we may all be truly “Spirit-filled,” not as a mark of distinction from Christians we might view as lesser, but as a description of the Spirit's gracious and present work in our lives. To be Spirit-filled is to be humbled, not proud. When we looked at 2 Corinthians several weeks ago, we remembered Paul’s image of clay pots and lifted up this plant and we talked about the pot is simply a holder for God’s work. Today, I want us to think about the plant itself. What if I pulled up this plant, cut off the roots, and put the flowers back in the pot? They might be prideful for part of a day, but eventually they will die, even if you put them in some water. Being rooted and grounded is what makes this plant beautiful on the outside and strong on the inside, and this is a daily process. Remember that one of Paul's petitions that we're getting to in verses 18-19a is to fully comprehend Christ's love. Paul says in chapter 1:15 that he has heard of the Ephesians’ “strong faith in the Lord Jesus and love for God’s people everywhere,” so they are not without love. What he is asking is that their practice of love be deepened. Paul wants the Ephesians, and us, to be “rooted and grounded in love,” that love might more and more be their way of life. Only if we know the experience of loving hard-to-love people, can we truly comprehend the ins and outs of Christ's immense love. This is where Paul takes us to next in verse 18. Let’s say it together. BIBLE 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Paul prays for the power to grasp, the ability to comprehend the incomprehensible. How can Christ love those who are his enemies? How can Christ love those who are the least, the last and the lost? How can Christ sacrifice so that everyone might have access to eternal life? To the natural mind it doesn't make sense. It is truly mind-blowing. He acknowledges this with the phrase, “love that is too great to fully understand,” which means, to go beyond, surpass and outdo. Paul doesn't just pray that we might “get it.” He prays that we might grasp the full scope of his love -- width, length, height, and depth. Wow! Have I achieved this? I don't think (Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org so. If I’m honest, there are many people I have trouble loving, which is an indication of how little I really comprehend the immensity of God's great love. This is why each of us is invited to pray that God might fulfill Paul's prayer in our own hearts! Let me ask you a few questions as it relates to Paul’s prayer. SLIDE What kinds of things prevent us from comprehending the far reaches of Christ's love? SLIDE What happens in the way we live when we do comprehend, know, and experience this love? SLIDE What would be different about your life if you could grasp this? We then come to the climax of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians and for us. BIBLE Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Paul doesn't want the believers to be half-filled, but filled completely. The term “fullness” means (super)abundance." Paul prays for the Ephesian Christians to be filled with “all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. No prayer that has ever been framed has uttered a bolder request. What does it mean to be "filled with all the fullness of God"? Going back to Munger's analogy of Christ having access to all the "rooms" in our "house," it means unlocking some doors and cabinets that have been so far closed to Christ's influence -- and cleaning them out. Each of us has suffered wounds. In many of us, these hurts have not healed, but underneath the scab are festering sores of bitterness. If that is the case, we must go back, open up the wound, dress it with forgiveness, and cover it this time with God's grace that can cover a multitude of sins. Unlocking some of those doors may require rethinking our value system that has been too strongly influenced by the culture and realigning it with the God’s plan and dream for our lives. It may involve a change in the way we treat people, perhaps making amends and asking forgiveness. If we want to be filled with all of the fullness of God, that requires Christ's access to and welcome in every area of our lives, no matter how much pain his entrance might entail. Christ must have all of us if we are to be filled completely. I met Erin the last few months I was in my previous church in the Denver area and a couple years ago she posted her powerful story of transformation on my Facebook page. I grew up in a small Methodist church in Topeka, Kansas. At the age of 8 I asked Jesus into my heart, though as is typical with concrete thinking 8-year-olds, I didn’t know how he’d fit! By the time I was 14 and in high school I began making choices that the enemy was quick to point out that “good Christians” don’t. Not being grounded in the truth of God’s word, I settled for the lies. Topeka is also home of an unfortunately well-known church by the name of Westboro Baptist. They touted hatred and quoted scripture to do it. Again, not understanding the truth of God’s word, I settled for a lie. A God that hates was not a God I wanted anything to do with. Sin is sweet for a season, and I enjoyed this season of my life as much as a blind, broken person can, all the while hating God and the things of God. I met my husband when I was 20. We had a drug dealer in common, and a habit that lent to us spending a lot of time together. Soon I was pregnant, and six months later we were married. Three months later our son was born and we moved to Denver, CO where my husband had grown up. We lived in the ghetto in Denver, in a neighbored with people with similar bad habits. Those were rough years, and we struggled relationally. I stayed home full time with our son, which is challenging under the best of circumstances. Add drug use, broken relationships, and questionable ethics and you can image the emptiness such a lifestyle leaves in its wake.

(Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org My mother would encourage me to make new friends. Different friends. She would often suggest I find a “nice Methodist church” like the one we attended when I was little. And I told her she was crazy. Where would I find a church that would have anything to do with someone like me, and why would I want to be friends with anyone that was a Christian anyway? How would that be better? By the time our oldest was 2, I was pregnant again. I found a doctor in our insurance plan whose office was at Wheat Ridge Lutheran Medical Center. For the first 9 months of my pregnancy, I would visit this doctor’s office once a month, each time noticing the “nice Methodist church” on the corner, down the street from the hospital. How would we ever just walk into a church though? And why would we want to? During the last month of my pregnancy, in March of 2002, I had weekly appointments, and was driving by the church often. It was at this same time that I noticed a sign in the yard advertising Preschool enrollment for the coming fall. This got my attention. I didn’t need a Christian friend, and wasn’t interested in anything of God, but our only other option for preschool for our almost 3-year-old was Head Start in Denver. This seemed like a good alternative to that… So, that Sunday we got up early and walked into Wheat Ridge United Methodist Church. The first person to greet us was actually nice to us. I was surprised by their kindness and that he took the time to acknowledge us and greet us. Couldn’t they see we weren’t good enough for church? They even gifted us a mug with the church’s logo on it. This was all very strange to me. Don’t they know God hates people like us? Three weeks later, on March 22, our second son was born. He was delivered via scheduled C-section, and was a picture of health. He had fair skin and a head full of white hair. After a lengthy and challenging first labor and delivery with our oldest, this delivery could not have gone any smoother. Three days later, on the day we were to be released, I noticed our baby vibrating, for lack of better explanation, in his bassinet. When I asked the nurse about it, she seemed unalarmed and encouraged us to point it out if we saw him do it again. Thirty minutes later, as my husband packed up the remainder of our things, I noticed Jack vibrating again and called the nurse. She seemed puzzled, but reassured us it was probably nothing. We agreed to allow her to take him to the nursery for observation while we loaded our car, ready to finally head home. Some time passed before I encouraged John to take our things home to unload and then come back to get us. By the time he came back, I still had heard nothing from the nurse or nursery, so John and I decided to stroll up to the nursery to pick up Jack before heading home. When we reached the nursery, we were redirected to a room down the hall, which we later found out to be the NICU. Upon arrival, we were greeted at the door by a nurse who took us to a small waiting room just before the NICU observation room and sat us down. She wanted to warn us about the condition we would find our son. He was being closely monitored and we would likely be alarmed by the sight. That was putting it mildly. Our tiny son had been stripped down and placed under a warming light while also being hooked up to numerous monitors and machines, to include an IV through the top of his head. It absolutely took our breath away to see him under such alarming conditions. But the worst was to come. The doctor soon appeared and gave us the grave news. Jack had suffered several grand mal seizures and his prognosis did not look good. He would need to spend several days or weeks in the NICU under close observation, in which time several intrusive tests would need to be run to get to the bottom of what was causing such severe seizures and what damage they had or would do. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. It was the first time I felt completely (Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org and utterly helpless. And afraid. And it left me full of rage. I couldn’t breathe. I was angry at the doctor and angry at the nurse, and looking at my husband and seeing fear on his face made me angry too. Time stood still. And I don’t remember much of what happened in the following moments. Within the hour though, and still reeling from the prognosis, the same nurse that first warned us of Jack’s predicament came to us and said, “Your Pastor is here and would like to come back.” Surely, she had the wrong couple. We didn’t have a Pastor. “We don’t have a Pastor.” “Are you John and Erin English?” “Yes.” “He says he is your Pastor and would like to come back.” “We don’t have a Pastor.” I was completely perplexed. We didn’t have a Pastor. And if we did how would he know where we were, what was going on and why would he show up for this? Slightly irritated now, “He says he’s here to see you. What do you want me to tell him?” It occurred to me in that moment this was probably the Pastor from that “nice little Methodist church” down the street with the preschool sign in their yard. If I hadn’t already been angry enough, this just about put me over the edge. With gritted teeth, I told her to allow him back. Who was this guy, and who did he think he was? He didn’t know us. He didn’t know our son. He didn’t know what we were feeling? And how in the hell was he going to help anyway? Is this just what Christian Pastors do? Show up in people’s crisis and make nice? Smile for the camera? I realize now that when in the presence of someone so angry, it’s palpable. John did most of the talking, while I quietly fumed. It wasn’t long before the pastor said, “Well, I’m going to go, but first, can I pray for you?” This got my attention. I had been helpless and hopeless with no idea what to do. What harm could praying do though? I hadn’t heard a single, solid other idea and immediately said, “Yes.” I don’t remember ever hearing someone pray out loud before… And without the ritualistic or rhyme of the ones I vaguely remembered from childhood. The pastor placed his hand on my baby, covered in wires and monitors, and then took my hand. I have no idea what he said, but in that moment, I heard the voice of God say directly to me, “This baby belongs to me. I love him more than you are capable of loving him. Give him back to Me.” And I believed God. Without hesitation, I said OK. I knew Jack would be ok. I didn’t know if he would live or die, but live OR die I knew he would be ok. God loved him more than I was capable, and I believed Him. All the fear, all the anger, all the anxiety, was gone in an instant. I know now that in that moment I experienced the supernatural power of God and His peace that surpasses all understanding. Five days later, the same doctor that had pronounced death over my son just days before, looked us in the eye and told us to take our baby home; Jack was completely healthy. He said he could not explain and did not know what had happened. But I knew…

(Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org I went home that day and dug through boxes until I found the Bible I’d received when I was 8 after asking Jesus into my heart. I opened it up and began reading. I kept reading. And reading. And God kept working. And keeps working. Erin is now a children’s ministry director and her journey began and continues in the rhythm of Paul’s doxology. BIBLE 14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Let’s say these words together… BIBLE 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. I prayer you will discover Paul’s Doxology to the Ephesians in your life today and each day as your roots grow down dep into God’s love and keep you strong. Let’s pray. SLIDE Prayer Gracious God, open our eyes, expand our understanding, help us to comprehend the immensity of both your love and your power. Break us open from our narrow, blindered views of you so that we might see you as you are in all your glory. And whatever changes in us that will require, we offer you both our permission and our humble desire that you might complete your full work in our hearts and lives. In Jesus' name and for his sake, we pray. Amen.

(Message Notes and Meditation Moments for September 9-10, 2017) For more, go to www.fumcdurango.org