WEBVTT 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:01.002 Good evening everybody. 00:00:01.002 --> 00:00:01.846 How are you tonight? 00:00:01.846 --> 00:00:08.006 Happy Valen, ash Day, huh, yeah, see how I did that. 00:00:08.006 --> 00:00:13.606 It's that traditional Valentine's Ash Wednesday day that we Lotharans love so much. 00:00:13.606 --> 00:00:15.506 It's the day that we love to die, right? 00:00:15.506 --> 00:00:24.640 Who else thinks it's a bit contradictory to have Valentine's Day, the day of love, on Ash Wednesday, the day of death, right? 00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:26.146 Yeah, well done, ben. 00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:33.771 I kind of think Jesus was probably supposed to be in that jar, not Mickey Mouse, but I mean, it tells us who you are, right. 00:00:33.771 --> 00:00:49.445 So, anyway, we are going to love death today and, whether you like it or not that this is the day that we're sharing Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday, it's probably something that we could all argue that death of oneself is fitting to the love of Jesus. 00:00:49.445 --> 00:00:49.947 Amen. 00:00:49.947 --> 00:00:57.564 So, either way, today we celebrate love and death and, if you so desire, before you leave today, I've already smeared my ashes. 00:00:57.564 --> 00:01:02.746 So if you want, ryan and I could stand at the back of the door and we can move your crops into a heart. 00:01:02.746 --> 00:01:05.325 I'm just kidding, we're not gonna do that. 00:01:05.325 --> 00:01:15.587 I want you to all go to dinner tonight with the cross on your forehead, because it opens up these opportunities to have conversations about Jesus and about ashes and about death, amen. 00:01:15.587 --> 00:01:21.908 So if you're going to pour tonight or you're going to some other restaurant tonight, I expect you to take the crosses, wear them proudly. 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:23.867 That's when I did when I was a kid. 00:01:23.867 --> 00:01:27.061 When I was growing up, we would go to Ash Wednesday early morning. 00:01:27.061 --> 00:01:34.248 A we get to skip school and then B, I got to go to school and part my bangs so everybody could see my tattooed cross on my forehead. 00:01:34.248 --> 00:01:39.287 And I was one of those kids that was super proud of like yeah, I'm a follower of Jesus, that's right. 00:01:39.287 --> 00:01:40.965 Go ahead and ask me about my Ascuse. 00:01:40.965 --> 00:01:44.903 I was that kid kind of nerdy, but I love Jesus in the day, so good for me. 00:01:44.903 --> 00:01:51.248 Not only is it Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday, but how many of you noticed that our remodel project started? 00:01:51.248 --> 00:01:52.864 Did you get on the hallway? 00:01:52.864 --> 00:01:54.162 Super cool. 00:01:54.162 --> 00:01:57.849 There's a new false wall there that you can't walk through. 00:01:57.849 --> 00:02:01.206 And, by the way, right behind Ross Ross point to the door for me over there. 00:02:01.206 --> 00:02:05.647 That is a door that we shouldn't be using unless it's an exit emergency. 00:02:05.647 --> 00:02:13.126 So, like fire on a Sunday morning or today, go ahead and use that door, otherwise you're gonna be walking into the newly remodeled area. 00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:16.705 It's also the time, as Ryan mentioned, that we're starting the Lenten season. 00:02:16.705 --> 00:02:21.463 I think it's super appropriate that we're doing the remodel project during the Lenten season. 00:02:21.463 --> 00:02:24.486 After all, as he mentioned, it's this time of change in our lives. 00:02:24.486 --> 00:02:27.349 It's this time when we want to change who we are. 00:02:27.349 --> 00:02:29.548 We want to change and be the people that we want to be. 00:02:29.548 --> 00:02:32.625 We want to change and be the people that Jesus calls us to be. 00:02:32.625 --> 00:02:37.800 We want to change and be the people that our social status tells everybody else that we are right. 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:40.528 So the remodel project is very fitting for this time. 00:02:40.528 --> 00:02:43.925 So, in other words, we have a lot going on during this Lenten season. 00:02:44.060 --> 00:02:53.810 As Ryan mentioned, lent is a 40 day season design to correlate with the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting and praying and being tempted. 00:02:53.810 --> 00:03:05.985 It's a season designed to turn our lives around and to fully live God's intent for us, and it all starts today with Ash Wednesday, with these ashes that remind us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. 00:03:05.985 --> 00:03:25.283 It encourages us to die to ourselves and our ways, and it suggests, often in the traditional churches, to give up something that we're holding on to to allow ourselves to feel the emotions and the sacrifices that Jesus gave up for us, which, by the way, the Lenten season's theme is called giving up. 00:03:25.283 --> 00:03:28.066 So please join us in the next six weeks and be a part of that. 00:03:28.066 --> 00:03:38.485 Now, in theory, this idea of giving up is great, but I'm not convinced that the 40 day challenge is what Jesus intended while he suffered in the desert or on the cross. 00:03:39.460 --> 00:03:46.766 For me, giving up caffeine or chocolate, to be honest with you, made me a little bit ornery in the past during those 40 days. 00:03:46.766 --> 00:03:55.610 I asked my husband at any time, and I tended to take my calendar out during the 40 days and I would mark it like oh, four more days, oh, you know, three more days left. 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:58.269 And by day 40, who's looking for the chocolate? 00:03:58.269 --> 00:03:58.961 So I don't know that. 00:03:58.961 --> 00:04:01.188 I learned a lot about sacrificing. 00:04:01.188 --> 00:04:15.508 So in theory, this is great, but it didn't work for me and it kind of makes me feel like we tend to water down the deeper meaning so we can manage and can control the things that we are willing to give up and sacrifice. 00:04:15.508 --> 00:04:17.305 Now don't get me wrong again. 00:04:17.805 --> 00:04:26.107 I think the theory is great, but when I Googled the most common things to sacrifice for Lent this year, the things that are supposed to turn our lives back to Jesus. 00:04:26.107 --> 00:04:45.031 Right, this is what I found Social media, coffee or caffeine, heat styling your hair, skipping appointments think about that clutter, video games and online shopping. 00:04:45.031 --> 00:04:49.350 Really, you're going to give up skipping appointments? 00:04:49.350 --> 00:04:51.406 Isn't that kind of a responsibility? 00:04:51.406 --> 00:04:54.026 You're going to give up heat styling your hair? 00:04:54.026 --> 00:05:08.766 Does anyone else look at that list and think, wow, these are things that probably mask other things, other issues, and yet I would bet that we probably all of us could check something off on that list. 00:05:08.766 --> 00:05:13.666 Those are easy things to go to that can say I can give that up for 40 days. 00:05:13.666 --> 00:05:19.747 But there's gotta be a deeper meaning for all of us to truly turn our lives around towards Jesus. 00:05:20.759 --> 00:05:43.067 What if we truly, in this season, sacrificed with the intent to change our way of life and we gave up things that actually grew us deeper and taught us to lean on Jesus more, such as expectations or control, such as unhealthy relationships or holding grudges, such as power or insecurities? 00:05:43.067 --> 00:05:46.367 Uftah, those are kind of big things, right. 00:05:46.367 --> 00:05:51.666 And what if the sacrifice, the fasting, lasted more than 40 days? 00:05:51.666 --> 00:05:54.297 What would our lives look like? 00:05:54.297 --> 00:05:56.476 What would this world look like? 00:05:56.476 --> 00:06:08.875 Well, let's explore that a little bit together, but first let's pray Father, we thank you for this Lenten season, for these ashes that remind us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. 00:06:08.875 --> 00:06:19.177 And this evening I asked that you would use my words and my thoughts to change how we look at this Lenten season and the sacrifices that you've made for us. 00:06:19.177 --> 00:06:22.557 Father, I ask you that you challenge our minds. 00:06:22.557 --> 00:06:32.992 You would challenge our hearts to give up the things that truly will change our hearts and our lives and your kingdom, into the plan that you've laid out for all of us. 00:06:32.992 --> 00:06:34.271 We love you, jesus. 00:06:34.271 --> 00:06:36.096 In your name, we pray amen. 00:06:37.589 --> 00:06:45.629 So a few weeks ago my husband and I returned from a hiking trip that we had been planning with our kids to Utah, and we've been planning it for several, several months Now. 00:06:45.629 --> 00:06:53.358 If you know me, you know that I love hiking, I love the outdoors, I love my children, I love my granddaughter I talk about her a lot. 00:06:53.358 --> 00:06:56.338 So we were over the top excited to go on this trip. 00:06:56.338 --> 00:07:04.857 But the week before we were ready to leave, just shy of that, my son called us and said mom, we're not gonna be able to go, for many understandable reasons. 00:07:04.857 --> 00:07:15.577 So in our attempt to not do the trip alone which I don't have a problem going with my husband alone, but I'm like, let's invite some friends Now, keep in mind, we only had a week left to go. 00:07:15.577 --> 00:07:26.795 So I called up two friends of ours who are fairly new, in a deep relationship with us, and I said you know, I know you're probably gonna say no, but I'm just gonna throw this out to you and I'm gonna be super transparent. 00:07:26.795 --> 00:07:29.458 We're inviting you to go with us for nine days. 00:07:29.458 --> 00:07:30.675 We're gonna go hiking. 00:07:30.675 --> 00:07:36.177 I know you don't really hike, I know you have to change your schedule and I was expecting a big no from him. 00:07:36.177 --> 00:07:39.237 But they said we'll talk about it and then we'll let you know the very next day. 00:07:39.237 --> 00:07:42.218 So Friday morning came along and guess what? 00:07:42.218 --> 00:07:45.274 They said yes, we were so excited. 00:07:45.274 --> 00:07:52.536 They said yes to all of the crazy ideas that we had and before you knew it, we were on the road and we're traveling to Utah together. 00:07:52.576 --> 00:07:53.338 In this road trip. 00:07:53.338 --> 00:08:02.396 They had very little time to plan, very little time to pack or shop, because they weren't hikers, but my friend's a good shopper and they said yes and we went anyway. 00:08:02.396 --> 00:08:05.553 They said yes to all of our crazy hikes and they're not hikers. 00:08:05.553 --> 00:08:09.413 They said yes to all of the crazy challenges and come to find out. 00:08:09.413 --> 00:08:10.297 They have some fears. 00:08:10.297 --> 00:08:12.235 They don't like heights, but we're climbing mountains. 00:08:12.235 --> 00:08:16.454 They said yes to living in the moment of the unexpected change. 00:08:16.454 --> 00:08:24.814 In fact, they said yes with very little hesitation and before they knew it, we had them hiking in frigid water in the Narrows of Zion. 00:08:24.814 --> 00:08:32.195 We had them hiking up a mountainside to Angels Landing and they were hiking switchbacks in the snow in Bryce Canyon. 00:08:32.195 --> 00:08:42.974 It was an amazing trip, filled with joy, yes, in the hikes, but truly I found joy for me, in seeing nature and God's beauties. 00:08:42.974 --> 00:08:50.871 Through their eyes and through their words, I can't tell you how many times my friend said, oh my gosh, every time she turned the corner and saw a mountain. 00:08:50.871 --> 00:08:52.357 Oh my gosh, look at that cliff. 00:08:52.357 --> 00:08:53.111 Oh my gosh. 00:08:53.111 --> 00:08:54.937 It was like time and time again. 00:08:54.937 --> 00:09:09.813 I found joy in every twist and turn that we made with them, and all because they were willing to live in the feast, a feast that I hope we can all live in this Lenten season, when we challenge ourselves to reflect and change the ways of our lives. 00:09:09.813 --> 00:09:12.556 That will give us life beyond our expectations. 00:09:13.529 --> 00:09:24.912 Verona read about this festival, the feast in First Corinthians, when she shared with us earlier Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened For Christ. 00:09:24.912 --> 00:09:27.099 Our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. 00:09:27.099 --> 00:09:35.378 Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 00:09:35.378 --> 00:09:46.499 This reading comes to us as Paul is using bread metaphors to help us understand why we must remove our old ways to live in the ways Jesus intended and sacrificed for us. 00:09:46.499 --> 00:09:51.216 He says we must clean out all of our old yeast and make new unleavened dough. 00:09:51.216 --> 00:09:54.217 He then continues to say something surprising. 00:09:54.217 --> 00:10:03.878 He says we are already the unleavened dough, and this is true because Christ was sacrificed on the cross to pay for our sins and our ways of life. 00:10:03.878 --> 00:10:06.777 The leaven has already been removed from us. 00:10:06.777 --> 00:10:13.378 So Paul is urging us to live up to what we already are the forgiven and set apart people of Christ. 00:10:14.350 --> 00:10:18.095 So why would we not live in the feast that was already offered for us? 00:10:18.095 --> 00:10:27.312 Or, to put it in another way, why do we allow the sins of the world to deliberately be practiced in our lives when a feast, something better, is waiting for us? 00:10:27.312 --> 00:10:40.000 Our friends that we vacationed with found a feast when they stepped away from their plans, their schedules and their lives, and they stepped into the unexpected with trust and deliberation to try something new. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:11:03.735 So many times on our trip I found myself looking back and smiling at them and wondering if this was how Jesus feels when we step away from our sins, our ways in this world, and finally turn our eyes on Him and the feasts that he is waiting for us, a feast that starts with death, the end of ourselves, and leads to new life. 00:11:03.735 --> 00:11:14.239 Ryan Sermon last week spoke to me and to this subject, and I found myself after Sunday asking what changes are needed in my life that will direct me to the feast. 00:11:14.239 --> 00:11:17.068 What things do I need to give up? 00:11:17.068 --> 00:11:22.958 What things need to die so I can have the new life that God planned for me through His sacrifices? 00:11:22.958 --> 00:11:31.115 What might be in the box that is needed to be worked on that blocks me from the plans? 00:11:31.115 --> 00:11:34.479 Who was here Sunday and remembers the box? 00:11:34.479 --> 00:11:43.711 And in the box is what it is our wounds, it is our trauma, it is our stuff. 00:11:43.711 --> 00:11:57.730 I would go so far to say it is the old yeast that makes us up, that tends to keep us from a better life, or the festival, when I think of my wounds and the box that I carry. 00:11:57.831 --> 00:11:58.711 I think of ruins. 00:11:58.711 --> 00:12:01.154 I took this picture in Israel last year. 00:12:01.154 --> 00:12:06.368 About a year ago, there was a group of us from central that went to Israel and this is one of the sites that we saw. 00:12:06.368 --> 00:12:07.591 That is called Bet-Chan. 00:12:07.591 --> 00:12:11.719 It is one of the most historical sites with the most ruins around that area. 00:12:11.719 --> 00:12:13.888 It was fascinating. 00:12:13.888 --> 00:12:24.804 All the ruins that we saw were fascinating, but what kind of resonated with me with these ruins is that they are just built on top of or over or mounding one another. 00:12:24.804 --> 00:12:28.168 In fact, most of Jerusalem is just one mound. 00:12:28.168 --> 00:12:36.480 So when they are building new construction sites there, they have to be very careful when they are unearthing the ruins, because they never know what they are going to find. 00:12:38.368 --> 00:12:44.999 My box is full of ruins that have been covered up from my past that I have rarely unearthed or picked through. 00:12:44.999 --> 00:13:01.140 When I think of the feast that I am missing out on, the feast that God has planned for me, I need to open that box and unearth the ruins that are camouflaged or covered up by such things as control or expectations or unnecessary affirmation. 00:13:01.140 --> 00:13:12.764 Now I know that God wants me to come to the feast, but to do that I need to get rid of the old yeast and I need to recognize that Jesus has already died and sacrificed himself for me. 00:13:12.764 --> 00:13:20.095 So I am the unleavened dough just waiting to rise, but because of my ruins, I have held back from the festival. 00:13:20.095 --> 00:13:27.784 I have allowed my ruins to define me, to disguise me and to lead my life which is unhealthy and is not of God. 00:13:27.784 --> 00:13:29.628 It is unhealthy for all of us. 00:13:29.628 --> 00:13:42.784 We all have old yeast that needs to go so we can make changes for his kingdom that we live in together, which means, then, that we need to unlearn what we think, we know about ourselves, about our past and our response to the world. 00:13:42.784 --> 00:13:49.177 We need to give up those areas of our life that draw us away from Jesus and his plans for us. 00:13:50.265 --> 00:14:16.740 Terry Walling, an author and spiritual coach, shared in his book Unlikely Nomads unlearning is the call to rethink all of what we do in light of the disciples we are called to become, and he continues with the posture of unlearning is the call to untangle some of the thinking, the beliefs, the methods and preferences from our past, as well as some of the most treasured traditions that have become enmeshed with the truth of Christ's kingdom. 00:14:16.740 --> 00:14:19.888 Unlearning, friends, is hard work. 00:14:19.888 --> 00:14:25.958 It takes courage to leave behind what you've known most of your life and to adopt new beliefs. 00:14:25.958 --> 00:14:30.975 It takes courage to catch yourself every time your mind turns to the default. 00:14:30.975 --> 00:14:38.017 I've spent many times trying to unlearn things in my life, some things that are very hard, some things that are very easy. 00:14:38.804 --> 00:14:44.277 I grew up my whole life thinking my name was Sonia Lynn Hanover, lynn L-Y-N-N. 00:14:44.277 --> 00:14:52.091 In my mid-40s I was updating my passport and I had to bring my birth certificate in, and on my birth certificate it says L-Y-N. 00:14:52.091 --> 00:14:52.673 I'm like what? 00:14:52.673 --> 00:14:55.730 No, my name is Lynn L-Y-N-N. 00:14:55.730 --> 00:15:02.397 No, it's L-Y-N, but my license says L-Y-N-N and my old passport says L-Y-N-N. 00:15:02.397 --> 00:15:06.921 I called my mom and I'm like Mom, my middle name is L-Y-N-N. 00:15:06.921 --> 00:15:07.745 Right, yeah, so it's mine. 00:15:07.745 --> 00:15:09.429 I said well, look at your passport. 00:15:09.429 --> 00:15:10.312 I was named after her. 00:15:10.312 --> 00:15:12.410 Hers was L-Y-N as well. 00:15:12.410 --> 00:15:15.639 She had been spelling her name incorrectly. 00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:22.717 I had been spelling my name correctly and to this day, I have a hard time reteaching myself how to spell my name. 00:15:23.605 --> 00:15:38.381 Unlearning is hard thing but it's an art and the way you grow into the better artist is to work on your art and the way you grow into a better person is for you to work on unlearning unhealthy beliefs of yourself and others. 00:15:38.381 --> 00:15:45.322 Jesus himself alluded to this very pastor of unlearning in the teaching he delivered on the Sermon and the Mount. 00:15:45.322 --> 00:16:03.980 He began with the phrase you have heard what was said, referring to the popular interpretation of the law, and then he declared but I will tell you, as he offered a new paradigm and a better way, and that better way starts with the ashes of death and finding new life. 00:16:03.980 --> 00:16:09.361 New life that springs from hard places and in our boxes filled with ruins. 00:16:09.361 --> 00:16:15.001 And often in those hard places it feels lonely and it feels isolated. 00:16:15.001 --> 00:16:20.201 But the good news and all of that for us is we are not alone. 00:16:20.201 --> 00:16:28.078 Look around, look at the person sitting next to you and look at their forehead. 00:16:28.078 --> 00:16:37.457 They have ruins, just like you and just like me, and they, just like you and just like me, need new life. 00:16:38.649 --> 00:16:41.677 When we were in Utah with our friends, we saw new life sprouting. 00:16:41.677 --> 00:16:50.297 In the oddest places Most of the mountains there are rock formations, but look on top of the rock there's a tree and there's a tree and there's a tree. 00:16:50.297 --> 00:16:55.041 And my friends Chris, nikki and myself would be like how does that tree grow up there? 00:16:55.041 --> 00:17:03.173 It's a rock and my husband would say a bird flew by and pooped out a seed, I'm like, oh wow, isn't that symbolic of our life? 00:17:03.173 --> 00:17:08.636 Sometimes our life feels like bird poop, doesn't it? 00:17:08.636 --> 00:17:14.875 And yet new life can come out of the waste, even when our lives feel like it. 00:17:15.056 --> 00:17:59.001 New life can sprout in the darkest and in the hardest places, where rebirth and repentance begins an outward journey of transformation and takes us outside of ourselves and into a world around us that is filled with boxes of ruins, like suffering and hungry, boxes of division and devastation, boxes of hurt and sorrow and abuse and addiction, boxes that push back on God in his ways, boxes that often tell us that you need to do life alone, we don't need other people, and you surely don't need Jesus, until the tidal wave comes crashing down around us and we all know that what we have been taught and what we have been doing in our lives is no longer working and we're drowning. 00:17:59.001 --> 00:18:03.540 And so we seek a better way through new life in Jesus and through our faith. 00:18:03.540 --> 00:18:17.297 Mark four shares a story of a better way when Jesus was in the stern of a boat and a big storm was coming around and he was sleeping on a cushion and the disciples woke him and they said to him teacher, don't you care if we drown? 00:18:17.297 --> 00:18:23.222 And he got up and he rebuked the wind and he said to the waves quiet, be still. 00:18:23.222 --> 00:18:26.239 And then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 00:18:26.239 --> 00:18:29.598 And he said to his disciples why are you so afraid? 00:18:29.598 --> 00:18:31.415 Do you still have no faith? 00:18:31.415 --> 00:18:34.538 And they were terrified and they asked each other who is this? 00:18:34.538 --> 00:18:42.910 Even the wind and the waves obey him and that, my friends, is the power of him over our ruins, in our lives. 00:18:42.910 --> 00:18:49.223 He waves his hands and he demands quietness and he demands stillness. 00:18:50.054 --> 00:18:53.670 The disciples unlearned their ways and they leaned into Jesus for their salvation. 00:18:53.670 --> 00:18:59.410 They gave up all they knew, their control and their knowledge, and they trusted their father as only they could do. 00:18:59.410 --> 00:19:11.240 And isn't that the kingdom and its best at its work, giving up on the things that block us from him, the hard things that matter, so we can depend on his ways, central. 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:12.230 It's time to start giving up. 00:19:12.230 --> 00:19:18.584 We are in a place in our lives, in this world and in the church that needs change. 00:19:18.584 --> 00:19:22.682 Let this Lenten season be a season of that change for all of us. 00:19:22.682 --> 00:19:34.210 Unlearn what, the things that have a hold on you, that are in your box and in your ruins, so we can be cleansed from the old yeast and enjoy together the feasts that he plans for us. 00:19:34.210 --> 00:19:37.750 And then, and only then, can we die to ourselves. 00:19:37.750 --> 00:19:39.374 Come to the feast. 00:19:39.374 --> 00:19:41.318 All are welcome, amen.