Creekside Church Sermon of January 12, 1997 "You Light Up My Life" Mark 1:4-11	Rev. David Bibbee
Send this sermon to a friend

Robert Fulghum has a classic story of the day a motorist sought his help. "Jumper cables? Sure, I got jumper cables." A young couple from Nampa, Idaho had left their lights on. Fulghum continues, "Now men are supposed to know something about jumper cables. It's in the genetic code. But he only asked if I had jumper cables. He didn't ask if I knew how to use them.

So I get out my jumper cables and we swagger around being all macho and cool, talking car talk. We lift the hood, but there was no battery. "Here's your problem. Someone stole your battery." "It's under the back seat," his wife said. So they dug through the luggage and there it was just waiting to have jumper cables laid on it. The sum total of their knowledge was that positive and negative poles were involved and either one or both cars ought to be running.

"I thought he knew what he was doing and went along with it. He thought the same. We hooked it all up real tight and turned on the ignition in both cars at the same time. There was this electrical arc between the two cars that not only fried his ignition system, it welded the jumper cables to my battery, and knocked the baseball cap off his head. It sounded like the world's largest fly hitting one of those electric killer screens...Zish! Accompanied by an awesome blue flash and some smoke. Power is an amazing thing. We just sat down, awed by what we had accomplished.

Weeks later, Fulghum got a present in the mail from the guy's wife. A gesture of grace-forgiveness combined with instructions and an admonition to go and sin no more. It was a set of electronic, true-start, fool proof, tangle free jumper cables. Complete with instructions and a little switch control to tell you if it's hooked up right. "We could all use a device like this between us and power," Fulghum says.

Now if anyone asks if he has jumper cables he says, "Jumper cables? Sure I got jumper cables. I can hook you up to Grand Coulee Dam, buddy. Or wire you into Almighty God. Amen."

Power is an amazing thing, alright. It's an important thing, too. I want to spend a little time talking about power today. Not political power, fire power, or horse power, but the primal power that changes outlooks, attitudes, lives, churches, and even the world, should we avail ourselves of it. To know what it is, we go to Mark, chapter 1.

John was busy in the wilderness, preaching repentance, baptizing, and telling about someone coming far more powerful than he. Then Jesus came to be baptized, and when he came out of the Jordan River, it happened. The sky was torn apart. Here's a strong, bold image for you. No one else saw it. Only Jesus. And the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. Here the power image seems to break down. The sky ripped apart and the Spirit descends...like a dove? Why not an eagle? Eagles are strong and majestic birds. You don't mess with eagles. But Mark says "a dove." How about a hawk? Hawks are impressive. Even a falcon would evoke a picture of grace and power. But a dove? The power of the Holy Spirit likened to a delicate, vulnerable little bird that would make a meal for an eagle? Strange.

Yet this was the greatest transfer of power in history. It doesn't seem like much, the power of God falling upon him like a gentle dove. In Revelation you will remember he is another weak image...a lamb. It's easy to underestimate the power which God has given his people. It doesn't seem powerful. The powers that be aren't shaking in their shoes over our arsenal. And the church isn't exactly a picture of overconfidence. How are we going to change the world if our hands are full deciding on the carpet color for the sanctuary?

We don't act like it, but the power given to the baptized is the same power given to Jesus. The power that healed the sick, restored people to sanity, turned lives around and empires upside down is at your disposal. Instead of just responding to what comes along, we can create what moves ahead. We could be so much more, do so much more, but God's power doesn't announce itself with daily ecstatic experiences. In fact, it's spectacular results come through rather unspectacular means.

God's power is an amazing thing. The first step is to center in the Source. Honor time with God daily. When Theodore Hessburg became a priest he made a vow to celebrate mass every day of his life. Hearing how he did it makes for interesting reading. He did it in airports, on airplanes, aircraft carriers, and even at the North Pole. To keep the vow was often a challenge, but never an empty obligation. It was a daily communion with the sacred that gave an awareness of God's presence.

To experience the power of God assumes spending intentional time with God. How we do it isn't as important as just doing it. For some people it means daily reading of the Bible or a devotional. For some it is prayer and meditation. Certain types of prayer are better suited for certain types of personalities. Some find early morning prayer best. Some late at night. Some on a treadmill. How isn't important...that you do it, is.

Do you think you can forge a strong marriage by spending an hour a week with your spouse? Do you think you will long for each other if you have only a passing thought about the other? Would it send a warm signal to your spouse if you said you intended to spend more time, but other things keep getting in the way? Of course not. Not only would you not draw strength and love from such a marriage, you wouldn't have a marriage. So what makes you think you can do the same with God and have a relationship? An hour on Sunday doesn't cut it.

When two people are in love, they want to spend time together, they want to learn about the other, share their hearts, their dreams, and needs. It is the same with God. To experience and feel God in daily living, we must make appointments, not out of obligation-not because we must or should, but because we CAN. You can have a relationship with the creator of the universe who wants you to know Him, know His love for you, and receive His power to make you His child.

To receive power, we center in the Source. We also search the self. To get muscles into shape, you must exert them. Developing strength requires resistance. In the spiritual life, this translates into doing what we avoid...scrutinizing ourselves. Knowing God is a must, but so is knowing ourselves, otherwise it's tough to know whose power is at work in us.

The psychiatrist Victor Frankl had a theory that in order to grow, people need tension. If there is nothing to strive for; if nothing pushes us, we are not just uninteresting people, but unfulfilled and hopelessly bored people. We must have something to work for. Hal Heeter finds meaning in solving challenging math problems. Twig, participating in the drama of open heart surgery.

The tension for the spiritually concerned calls for scrutiny, and this is also known as the prayer of examen. Examen is Latin root of the word examination, and also refers to the weight indicator on a balance scale. The examen helps give us a true assessment of ourselves. One part involves going over the events of the day to see how we have been aware of and responded to God's presence. The part which creates tension is where we look to aspects of ourselves which are troubling and in need of forgiveness or healing.

What did I say today that I shouldn't? What courtesy did I withhold? How did I fail to affirm someone who needed it? Being a channel of God's power requires a regular cleansing of the crud that clogs it. The less obsessed we are with self, the more possessed by God's power we become.

So having said this, the next step is giving expression to God's power, or as I like to put it, "improving your serve." The power of God is not expressed in a way the world recognizes. It doesn't grab headlines, but dispenses little acts of kindness which are eternally significant. It is counting others' needs before our own. It is looking out for the least and the lost. It is about turning cruelty into kindness.

Max DuPree is a Fortune 500 executive who has gotten significant press in recent years. His Zeeland, Michigan company is the largest office manufacturer in the country. He wrote a book on leadership, but is doesn't detail an aggressive, cut throat, maximize profits at minimal cost philosophy. "The true leader," he said, "doesn't lord over the employees. A true leader is genuinely concerned about them. The best manager of a corporation is not one who orders others around. He is their leader. Max DuPree is by outward standards a powerful, wealthy, influential man. But Max DuPree is also a devout Christian who has taken his principles of servant leadership from the gospels.

The power of God is not dispensed for our benefit. Rather, God wants it to flow through us to be a benefit to others.

All of the sermons that have appeared in text form on our Web Site since August 1996 are available here in the On-Line version. Use the search engine below to find the sermon you want. You may search by date, sermon title, or content. The sermons are full-text searchable.

Sermon Search:



Exact phrase    All words (AND)    Any word (OR)