Greetings! It’s good to be with you today in the Pastor’s Workshop.
As you know Thursday is a “highlight” in our creative process. It’s the day we gather all our notes, thoughts, and reflections and see how they “fit together”. We discern and write. And then we discern and write some more as our message for Sunday comes together.
Our title for the message is “Claim the Good”. Our key verse is Genesis 1:31. Our focus phrase is “very good”. Our supplemental Scripture is Acts 17:22-28. My message is “How can we “see and seize”, name and claim, the “very goodness” of life in which we ‘live and move and have our being’?”
Here are my talking points for Sunday –
There are actions people are taking during this Covid season that are “very good”.
It’s important for us to let our hearts be “lifted“ by their witness, particularly when times are hard, things seem bad and we feel overwhelmed.
The “very goodness” of their actions speaks to the “very goodness” of God and how life can be very good with God.
Genesis 1:31 proclaims that life is inherently infused with “very goodness”. As God surveys all God has done and sees it is “very good” that divine satisfaction is both a benediction God makes upon Creation and a recognition that Creation reflects the goodness of its Creator.
In Acts as the Apostle Paul addresses the learned folk of his day he proclaims this “very good” truth to them. It’s worth noting he doesn’t seek to convince them they are sinners in the hands of an angry God. He addresses them as seekers who can discover an amazing grace. The “Unknown God” they worship is a very good God. God is knowable. God is nearer to them then they can imagine. God has given them life and breath and all things. God is the One in whom they “live and move and have their being”. In themselves they carry the image of that very good God, as even the Greek poets said, “We are his offspring.”
We hear this witness to the very goodness of God and the very goodness of life with God, but sometimes we still aren’t convinced. There is so much that seems to contradict that conclusion.
Perhaps one of the reasons we don’t experience the goodness of life is that we don’t realize how it comes to us. The Goodness of Life comes as Potential, Possibility and Opportunity. The Goodness of Life asks our cooperation and participation. To know “Goodness” we need to name it and claim it.
We want to “Claim the Good” in the world around us. Our prayer is that we “see the sacred” and behold the beauty that is around us each day.
We want to “Claim the Good” in the people before us. Our prayer is that we see others as Jesus sees them. Our aim is that we treat others in ways that nurtures the “goodness” of their lives.
We want to “Claim the Good” in the person within us. So often we speak of “self-image”. There is also “soul image”, the essence of who we are as human beings. God has made us in God’s image and that “imago deii” is in each one of us. So often this blessing has been hidden, covered and buried. The Good News is that Jesus was also at one point “hidden, covered and buried”. But Jesus rose, and in rising Jesus Christ redeemed the Imago deii, very goodness of God, in each of us. He continues to redeem, restore, and renew that very goodness as we live our lives with him as Risen Savior.
As children we learned the prayer, “God is Great, God is Good”. In our early days God’s greatness and goodness was a matter of the meal before us. As we have grown we realize that in God’s greatness, God has blessed life with God’s goodness. We can name and claim and live that “very goodness” all to God’s glory. In that faith I invite us to “Claim the Good”.
This is the outline of my message. As always it will be filled in with illustrations and additional development.
What are your talking points? How do your reflections of the week come together? What is the important message the Spirit is speaking to your heart about the “very goodness” of life with Christ?
I’m glad we can write our message today. And it’s good that we can let it “marinate” for a couple of days before we preach it. It’s amazing how when you go back and review your message the Spirit will suggest better ways to proclaim the truth.
So I’ll let you get to work on your message, and I look forward to being with you again on Saturday as we prepare with prayer in the Pastor’s Workshop.
Prayer: Gracious God, thank you for the message you give. We are grateful that even as we have been at work all week, You have been at work too! As You create, all You make is “very good”. And we pray that what we have written will reflect Your Goodness. Moreover, we ask that our words would be filled with Your Word in ways that it would help others claim and live Your “Very Goodness” in their lives. This we pray in the name of the One who redeemed us in and for Your Goodness and Grace, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen