Dave & Erin Ripper

The Divine Conspiracy Continued with Dr. Gary Black Jr.  

UnBELIEVEable Spoken Word

Give to Love. Love to Give.

What normally motivates you to do whatever you do?  Is it to get, or to give?

Here at Grace Chapel, we finished up our teaching series on generosity this week called, Next: Following a God Who’s Always on the Move.  For me personally, this was a pivotal series for my spiritual growth.  Like many of us, throughout the majority of my life, I’ve been implicitly taught that getting beats giving any day.  American schooling and sports tell us to make every effort to get through achieving, accomplishing, winning, and outdoing.  Getting ahead is how you leave your mark.  Getting recognized is how you build a platform to influence.   Getting is the only way to get what you are entitled to—the perfect job, house, spouse, kids, life, whatever.  In a dog-eat-dog world, giving will get you nowhere.  So why give?  You’ll only become a doormat for others to get what they want.  So get, don’t give.  This is the American Way.  Get it?

But throughout our series, we’ve discovered there’s a better way, an alternative way, a subversive way to all the competing, greedy, violent, and malicious ways that comprise the American Way.  It’s the Jesus Way.  He not only died for us, but showed us how to live—really live.  His way of life was exclusively about giving not getting—incarnation, death, resurrection, promised return—and he lived the greatest life imaginable.  His memorable words reflect his even more unforgettable way of life: “You’re far happier giving than getting” (Acts 20:35, Msg).  While these words seem totally counterintuitive and utterly unlivable, I’ve been fascinated to learn that several of my favorite speakers and writers base their approach to teaching, entertaining, and communicating as if Jesus’ words actually worked. 

Comedian Michael Jr. says that the biggest break in his stand-up career was the moment that he realized his purpose as a comedian was not to get laughs, but to give people the opportunity to laugh.  This changed everything for him.

USC Philosophy Professor, Dallas Willard, noted that before he did whatever he was about to do—teaching, writing, speaking—he would remind himself that his purpose was to do everything as an act of love.  In other words, Dallas’s aim was not to impress, look smart, or receive affirmation, but to love.  Striving to love is how living to give and not get best plays out. 

Author and popular TED speaker, Simon Sinek, notes that a big part of his life mantra is the declaration: “I always show up to give.”  He argues that the most viral TED talks have gone viral because the speakers spoke in service to the audience, not to their own agendas.  Rather than trying to market their product or get notoriety or get people to follow them on Twitter, the best speakers strive to freely share what they’ve found for the betterment of their listeners, and, in turn, the betterment of the world.  He believes this is the characteristic difference between brilliant and authentic speakers versus speakers who want to get something for themselves.

What if Sinek’s motto, “I always show up to give,” became the driving refrain of each and every one of our lives, each and every day?  We would be living as if what Jesus taught was actually true, wouldn’t we?  Giving is greater than getting.  That’s what living by faith is all about.  

This is an amazing story and prayer for all of us who can never be quite ready enough for what God might be calling us to next.

"A speaker was once introduced by the perfect man who said simply, 'Mr. Weaver, we are ready.  Are you ready?'  When I gather myself for prayer it is almost as if God were so addressing me: 'Douglas Steere, I am ready.  Are you ready?'  And my answer is, 'O Lord, you are always ready, but am I ever ready?  O Lord, make me ready, or at least make me more ready to be made ready.'"

How might God be inviting you to get ready to be made ready to respond to His calling today?

Latest sermon from Grace Chapel: Golden Hour (God's Not Done Yet).  

“For God alone my soul waits in silence...”

Thank you for this provocative prayer provided for us by David, Lord.  I’m struck particularly by the repetition of the phrase, “For God alone,” throughout Psalm 62.  How rare it is that God alone is what we seek--that God alone is who or what we wait for.  The far more familiar refrain is that we hedge our bets, whether intentionally or not, on what A.W. Tozer called, “The God-and Syndrome.”  As in God and success.  God and acclaim.  God and convenience.  God and my self-god.

Forgive me for this almost ingrained tendency that I have to trade in God-alone for God-and.  It is a lack of faith.  It is a slam in Your face.  It is earth-blindedness.  It is a life of worry and fear.  It is a life of kingdom-resistance.  It’s a bold shout without words that You are not enough.

But God-alone is kingdom entrance.  God-alone is life above.  God-alone is the definitive Way.  God-alone is life.  Any addition to God-alone is God-less--compromise, settling, an indictment that we’re “far too easily pleased” (Lewis).  Any subtraction to God-and is an additional step towards God-alone, or more God, more Life.   And by your mercy, the God-alone life is always available.  Extravagantly, recklessly, freely.  

Today, Lord, may we swap all of our and’s for a single, alone.  You, God-alone.  There is nothing more, nothing less, nothing else that we want. 

Title: "This One Thing We Do"

In my recent sermon, "One Word Prayers: 'Thanks,'" I tackle this question head on.  Here are several things that I've found that keeps us from being more thankful people.

Comparison: If you want to become less grateful, commit to constantly comparing yourself with others.  If you want to be less grateful, compare away.  Comparison will always strip you of gratitude, because it causes you to dwell on what you lack by prohibiting you from seeing all that you have been given.     

Isn’t it ironic that when you’re a kid, and your parents are upset with you because they don’t think you’re showing enough appreciation, they force you into playing the comparison game.  Let’s say you don’t want to eat those frozen lima beans and flavorless, canned peas that are left on your plate, getting colder and grosser while you refuse to eat them.  Any kids or big kids out there know what I’m talking about?  What do parents normally say at such a standoff?  You should be grateful for this food because there are starving children all over the world who wish they could eat this.  This is called coercive gratitude by guilt and therapists all over the country are making a living helping people get over the guilt they carry with them for not eating their lima beans. 

But are you ever that much more grateful for what you have by thinking of what others don’t have.  Maybe for a time, like after getting back from a mission trip, but not completely.  Because what tends to happen is that if you compare what others lack to what you have, you will naturally compare what you lack to what others have, and that is a recipe for bitterness, disappointment, jealousy, and envy.  Instead of comparing, pray ‘thanks’ for every thing you have, and you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve already been given.

So the first obstacle to thankfulness is comparison, the second I’d say is hurry.  When you are rushed moving as fast as you can, constantly pushing your way onto the Green Line or wherever you’re going, you miss so much of what’s going on around you, and especially who is around you--people you might be called to love, and maybe even God Himself.  There is a beauty and goodness to the ordinariness of life, and these things are gifts from God.  But how often do we simply miss opportunities to enjoy and say thanks, because we never slow down.  So slow down, pay attention, and find yourself more thankful.

So comparison and hurry are obstacles to thankfulness, and here are a few more:

Impatience: believing that because I don’t have something right now, that I never will; a condition resulting in panic, anxiety, and taking measures into one’s own hands prematurely, therefore shortchanging opportunities for personal growth and formation. Impatience.

Entitlement: believing that I am really that awesome, and seeking “justice” to get what is rightfully mine without hard work, dedication, and long-term commitment; results in possible chronic dissatisfaction, and probable need to get a spanking as an adult.  Entitlement.

Fantasizing: believing that somewhere else, someone else, or something else is far more preferable than this place, this person, or this life.  Results in perpetual discontentment and unfaithfulness.  Fantasizing.

Grumpiness: assuming the worst, feeding on the negative, anticipating annoyance, and secretly hoping nothing works out just to be able to say, “I told you so.”  Results in an inability to enjoy anything good.  Grumpiness. 

And this list could continue.  Essentially anything that takes your sight or focus away from God and His work in the world and your life, will lead you to be less thankful.  Because life with God is the fullest life we can experience, anything else means settling for less.

But while most of these behaviors are within our control to do or not do, what probably gets us away from gratitude more than anything else, are the Tough Circumstances in Life--things that happen beyond our control.  A diagnosis, a death, disappointment, or discouragement.  Some kind of loss: a lost job, lost friend, lost relationship, lost responsibility, lost dream, lost goal, two lost Super Bowls to the Giants.  Nothing knocks the wind out of our efforts to cultivate thankfulness more than experiencing something tragic that is beyond our control.  And none of us are immune to this.

So how can one possibly give thanks and pray ‘thanks’ in all circumstances when things have fallen so far short of what one had hoped for? 

Check out the conclusion to my sermon in the post below.

Blessings,

Series: One Word Prayers

Title: Thanks

Big Idea: Praying 'thanks' places us in the presence of God and heightens our joy.

Some days and some times we simply need hope.  

Hope for this hour.  Hope for this week.  Hope for this season.  Hope for this life.  

One of the greatest temptations of our day and age is to live without hope.  As if hope is lost.  As if hope is a psychologically constructed defense mechanism, or totally wasteful wishful thinking.  In our world, hope is in short supply.

But as Christians, we have rising hope, surprising hope, testifying hope.  And we are never in short supply of hope, no matter how high the demand.  

The worst day cannot rid us of hope.  The most hurtful words cannot talk us out of hope.  The hardest stories cannot scare us from hope.  No.  There’s no hope for anything that tries to stand in the way of real hope, because Hope--capital H, Hope, is Jesus.  In Colossians 1:27, Jesus is called “the hope of glory.”  This is why we sing and proclaim the great truths of Romans 5: “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”  (See the song, "Hail the King" by Citizens.)

To rejoice is to say in the face of despair, disappointment, disease, disruption, disorientation, dissatisfaction, dislocation, or destitution, “This is not all that there is.  I have something more, I have something greater that goes beyond what the eye can see, what the ear can hear, what the tongue can taste, what the nose can smell, what the skin can feel.  I have an aliveness in the kingdom of God, because of God’s grace through Jesus, that gives me hope that never stops, quits, or throws in the towel."  This hope lasts beyond the end into the beginning of what we know deep in our bones is coming.  The world of fulfilled hope.  Life fully, truly, really, with God.  And thus we rejoice.  And this is why Paul tells us insistently, rejoice in the Lord--always--again I will say rejoice.

Rejoicing gets us through the worst.  Rejoicing blazes light on the present darkness and opens the cloudy gray sky to brilliant brightness.  We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

I love how The Message captures the texture of hope as "alert expectancy" in Romans 5:1-5 to describe the opportunity each of us has to be a part of what God is doing.  That is the reason for our hope right now even in the midst of the most trying circumstances.  I invite you to take time pour over these words and allow them to stir your soul to the "joyous anticipation of good" that Dallas Willard describes as hope.

1-3 By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

Wow!  What a weekend we as the Fire community could share together at our Spring Retreat!  I am so grateful to God.  I believe the work he did at Camp Berea will not end there, but will weave its way throughout the life of our ministry.  Here's how we can be a part of what he's up to this month at Fire.

May 1: Life Community Groups

May 8: Large Group w/ Joe Hoyle speaking

May 10: Spring Serve.  Be a part of the 1,000 people from Grace Chapel serving all across Greater Boston in a variety of ways.  Sign up at grace.org/springserve.

May 15: Life Communities

May 22: Large Group Game Night!  The awesomeness of free time at retreat on a Thursday Night.  We'll have volleyball, knockout, and a ton of games.  Bring your favorite board game, and some friends for this great night!

May 29: Life Communities

For more info, visit grace.org/fire.

Enjoy the best of Jesus,

Below are the words to the responsive spoken word/call to worship that we began our Easter Services with.  I wrote this to be embedded in Chris Tomlin's "Awake My Soul."  Enjoy and have a blessed Easter everyone!

The cross that held him up

Couldn’t keep him down

The sealed grave that kept others out

Couldn’t hold him in

The weight of sin

Could not crush him

The sting of death

Could not stop him

The force of evil 

Could not contain him

Because Life is greater than Death.

  Jesus is Life

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The One who came so that we might have Life

And Life to the limit

In this Life, sin doesn’t stand a chance

Through this Life, pain has lost its place in line

Because of this Life, Death has been put to death

And been thrown in the grave! 

Because Life is greater than Death

  But while death might meet us

It cannot beat us

And it will not cheat us out of Life

Because Jesus has freed us,

He now leads us 

To life eternal - knowing Him forever, and now!

So while death has been given a say

It doesn’t have the final say.

Because Jesus LIVES

We also will LIVE

Because Life is greater than Death

  So today, both Death and Life stand before you

They send their greetings

And welcome you in

Who will you choose?

  Death makes itself look better than Life

But be warned: 

Don’t go seeking the living among the dead

Because Death leads to death

But Life leads to LIFE

So choose LIFE  

Follow Jesus

And don’t look back

Because Life is greater than Death

  So may you never cease to be connected

To the One who is Resurrected

And find yourself directed to life in Christ—Life perfected!

And  through you, may his life be reflected

So that everyone, everywhere knows that

Jesus Lives!