Resurrection Day Sermon

March 31, 2013 - Easter Sunday
Matthew 28:18-20
Resurrection Commission

What does Easter mean? Beneath the general usual story, what is the purpose? From the perfect world comes the Fall from paradise. This high rebellion from God did not deter His story and plot, though. We are part of His story, not the other way around.

God has promised punishment for sin and yet in the past He has been known to overlook man's sin. Now, with the cross and Christ's sacrifice it shows God's just wrath and now it may never be said that God is a liar or does not keep His Word. The Law required perfection and Christ fulfilled that for His people , not Himself  He was already perfect, bu He did it for His people.

Not only did He fulfill the Law, but He took on the punishment. If you do not look to Christ to fulfill your perfection, neither will Christ fulfill your punishment. If you do not look to Him to be your atonement and propitiation to the Father then you will have to take your own punishment.

Christ says in verse 18 that He has authority. He has a reason for saying it. When Adam fell into sin in the garden, he lost something...he lost his authority. Now Christ can say that He has gained what Adam had lost for man. Now He has defeated the last enemy, death, and He can say that He has all authority. In light of this, he has a commandment.

We have no cause to fear ever. We are children of the One who has ALL authority. Who do we fear?

"Go, make disciples..." it's not a push for evangelism, it's a push to reform the world. Evangelism is good and to be encouraged. But the point of this verse is to make disciples, spreading the word wherever we go. We cannot go about it carelessly, but meaningfully.

We cannot just preach and teach, but we must live it out. Use our lives a a teaching tool. Christ has established His kingdom and it will be filled with His disciples. Nations upon nations will be brought into His kingdom.

Too often we profess Christ but cannot walk in light and obedience to Christ or His Law. We want to live the life but not *live* it. Today, we can do what we want but still be able to call ourselves Christians. Is that really being a disciple? Is that really following Christ and walking in His example?

We are to walk as those who are living. What would that really look like? He came as not only our sacrifice, but as our ultimate example. We are to look to Him and live lives like that. Lives worthy of the title, "Christian". We must do this out of gratitude for our redemption and for a substitute for our punishment. A life well lived like this will show itself and be evident among us. At the end of a life like this, He will say to us, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

Crazy Pea's Quotes - Part 7

"You can't catch Cocoa, you can't catch Cocoa!" Peas

"Who is Cocoa?" Me

"Oh, just a...well, I don't know who Cocoa is!" Peas

"Com on, let's run! I've got lots of energy!" Peas

"Peas, remember to share." Me

"Oh yeah, that's right." Peas

"Ohh, pretty. What is it?" Me

"A big macaroni and cheese to eat with it!" Peas

"You're very big." Peas

"Big or heavy?" Me 

"Oh, heavy." Peas

"Peas, you can't just grab things. You have to ask for them nicely." Me

"Nicely!" Peas

"No, you have to say, "May I please play with the whistle?" nicely." Me

"May I please play with the whistle nicely?" Peas

"All aboard!" Peas

"All aboard what?" Me

"Nothing! All aboard!" Peas

"I think I will climb the shelves and sit on the op to blow my own bubbles." Peas

"You can't catch me, I'm the baddest guy!" Peas

"Don't get my baby." Ally

"I must. I'm naughty." Peas

"But he's a nice baby and he doesn't like bad naughties." Ally

"I'm a bad superhero and I've got your baby!" Peas

"Come here you nice guy!" Peas

"No! Naughty boy!" Ally

"Haha...I'm on your roof." Peas

"No, this is our car." Ally

"Help! Get me down! I'm nice!" Peas

"I thought you were the naughty guy?" Me

"No, I'm nice now! Get me down!" Peas

"Here's your baby. She has a diaper on." Peas

"No, I'm having my own." Ally

"What? A real one?" Peas

"Yes." Ally

"But why? You have to have a toy one!" Peas

"Do you want to come in my clubhouse? It's a bit squishy, but it's purple." Peas

"Can I have some for my baby?" Ally

"Okay. For pretend?" Peas

"Presto! It's all ready!" Peas

Lovely Quote For Women

“A woman in her glory, a woman of beauty, 

is a woman who is not striving to become beautiful or worthy or enough. 

She knows in her quiet center where God dwells that He finds her beautiful, 

has deemed her worthy, and in Him, she is enough.” 

— Stasi Eldredge, Captivating

Adorable Pea's Quotes - Part 6

(concerning hand-sanitizer) "It's sooo...pretty. I love it." Peas

"I don't like brown babies...or old babies." Peas

"Hey! Oh, I think I need to climb on the kitchen." Peas

"When you got food in your tummy you have lots of energy. So you run." Peas

"I'm tired...I got a lot of energy now!" Peas

"Let's wrestle! I've run out of energy!" Peas

"We need to run in circles and leave them off!" Peas

"How about you put your arms out and catch us?" Peas

"I look swimming like the water." Peas

"Wanna touch my tail?" Peas

"Do mermaids swim in water?" Peas

"Do you love my tail?" Peas

"What is it? What is it, tummy?" Peas

"It's my costume so people pick me up." Peas

"Am I beautiful like a mermaid?" Peas

"You are gorgeous like a mermaid." Me

"I know." Peas

"Follow me, princesses!" Peas

"Are you going to make me a big birthday cake so I can turn into five?" Peas

"Mommy?" Ally

"Yes? What do you want?" Peas

"Candy." Ally

"Candy?" Peas

"Yes, candy." Ally

"Why do you want candy?" Peas

"Cuz I love candy." Ally

"Candy is so yucky and gross." Peas

"No, I like it." Ally

"Candy is for big, gross, long kids." Peas

A Legacy Worth Remembering

Okay, so in terms of an explanation for why I haven't been writing as often (or rather, at all)...I've been pretty busy with normal school, music, work...but I've also been pretty sick lately and I got injured snowboarding on Monday! So even though I've had some down-time I haven't really felt up to blogging...so sorry! I hope to get more into the swing of it all now. 

My brother and dad are in this Men's Bible Study thing...they meet on Thursday nights. For some weird reason that still has not been explained to me their assignment this week was to have someone write an obituary for them. Well...naturally the task fell to me. At first, I was a little weirded out.  But oh well. So I got out the newspaper and ripped out a few obituaries...just to see how it's done. Well, it didn't take too long to finish both my dad's and brother's obituaries...and don't worry...they are neither dead nor dying!

While reading the obituaries in the paper I came across one lady's...she was 97 years old when she died. It went on to talk about how many children she had (9 I think?) and 42 grandkids and ...here's where I don't quite remember but I'm pretty sure she had a few great grandkids...and maybe 2 great great grandkids? I'm too tired to figure out whether that is logically possible and too lazy to go upstairs and get the page of obituaries. But it went on to talk about her life and what she did and everything about her. It was just amazing to read about this beautiful life that she lived. 

All that made me stop and really *think* about the legacy we leave behind. Are we life-changers? When anyone dies, yes, no matter how awful they really were all we do is reminisce about their good things...and to an extent that is right. But what if...what if when someone died all people could talk about was their good things because that really is all there is to remember? What kind of a legacy would you leave behind you if you died tonight? I know...so clique...but really think about it! Seriously...stop what you are doing and think about it for...max 5 minutes. It's gonna feel like a long time but once you're done it will be worth it. 

What are people going to remember about you? Are they going to have to work hard to remember the good things? Or will they have to work hard to remember anything negative about you? Will you live a beautiful life? I found something that won't leave my mind since I watched the movie Courageous. Are you going to be unhappy over all the things you miss out on? Or grateful for the time you did get? Totally paraphrased...but you get my point. Are you living to LIVE? Or are you living to live...or simply fill space on the earth? Do you really want to be here? Or are you just doing it because you were born? 

Behind all of this lurks the ever present question...WHAT/WHO are you living for? Now, normally I would say there is no right or wrong answer. But here...there is no gray. It's either black and white. Are you living for yourself? Even if you live for those you love around you it's ultimately a selfish reason. Or are you living for God? Are you desperately seeking Him in your every thought, word, and deed? Or are you just living to get by? Are you living for a reason? A purpose? A goal? A meaning? Or ...just because all the other options kinda suck? 

My heart breaks for you if you are apart from Christ and you deny it. I've watched so many people struggle day in and day out like that. Finding no purpose in life. Finding no meaning or joy. They live for nothing...they resort to cheap fun tactics of life to try and satisfy the emptiness that they feel. But they have to keep resorting to it out of habit and a need for more...but NOTHING can ever fill that hole...that emptiness...that longing for more. Nothing but Christ. And okay...I hadn't meant to make this post into a sentimental "come to Jesus" post...but I guess it did. I can't help but talk about Him! 

People...I've been where you've been at. I've felt that emptiness...that longing for MORE. The absolutely *need* for more. I will never deny you need more. But more of whatever you are addicted to won't ever help you...not even once, I promise. No matter how many times you end up drunk or high or whatever people are doing these days to satisfy the Christ-craving (I kinda like that) ...no matter what you do you will NEVER escape the reality that you need need need something. But until you realize your need for Him, you will keep searching. And believe me when I say that I don't hold it against you...I've been there, believe me. I've done the whole searching act...and it cannot hold up for long. 

Hopefully, and believe me when I say I pray for anyone searching, you will come across the answer you are looking for in your lifetime. With that Answer comes such BLESSED Peace...that peace that passes all understanding. You will never comprehend or understand quite how that peace works. But trust me, it is *beautiful*. It gives you joy. Hope. Meaning. Purpose. Love. Answers. 

That is the kind of legacy you want to leave with those you love. THAT is a life well lived. That is a stunning, drop-dead gorgeous life. That is an attractive life. It will draw others in. You teach it to your children...who teach it to their children...who pass it down for generations upon generations. That, my dear readers, is the true meaning of love. If your family were dying in a burning building and YOU could save them...if you had the chance and the ability to...would you? Of course you would. If those you loved dearest were drowning and you could save them...you would. So now...when you see those around you struggling and denying the Answer they need...can you just let them go? Let them die while searching and seeking for that Answer? Give them the answer they need...give them hope and a meaning for life. Know that it is Him working through you and nothing of your own.

Let me just say I love my work! Working at the library can prove to be ...well, interesting at times. You get the nicest people and the weirdest people and the rudest people and well...everyone! But one thing I really enjoy is that it has all become like clockwork for me. I've worked there for long enough to be able to thinking about multiple things while working...and tonight I had this Bible verse running through my head over and over. I *LOVE* it when that happens! I have a hard time memorizing a verse so when it just randomly pops into my head it makes me HAPPY! So the verse that I had tonight (which I thought was pretty appropriate) was Matthew 5:16, which says: "In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." 

Have a lovely evening, dear readers! Please feel free to message me or post in the comments any prayer requests you ever have. The most beautiful thing I can go to my Father with apart from praising and thanking Him is requests of those He loves and calls His own. 

Modernity Class Notes

Sarah Bacon - Modernity
Week 15: The Romantic Poets and Their Principles

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” -John Keats

Vocab:
American exceptionalism - the myth that de Tocqueville wove into his book.
sovereignty - the status, dominion, power, or authority of a sovereign; royalty.
delegates - a person designated to act for or represent another or others
jurisdiction - the right, power, or authority to administer justice by hearing and determining controversies.
jurisdictionalism - the right, power, or authority to administer justice by hearing and determining controversies
relegated - to send or consign to an inferior position, place, or condition
electoral - pertaining to electors or election.
magistratal - a civil officer charged with the administration of the law
interposition - the act or fact of interposing or the condition of being interposed.
chads - a term used in the ‘08 election
bedevil - to torment or harass maliciously or diabolically, as with doubts, distractions, or worries.
relegate - to send or consign to an inferior position, place, or condition


Revolution Vs Reformation:
Quick, Hasty Results vs. Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Loud Publicity vs. Quiet Reputation
Unrelenting Science  vs. Gentle Persuasions
Programs and Policies vs. Covenant and Callings
Charts, Graphs, Stats vs. Faith, Hope, Love
Gargantuan Purposes vs. Small Beginnings
Undeterred by Facts vs. Undeterred by Obstacles
Never Fails to Disappoint vs. Never Fails

Reformation moves slowly as is slower to change. It is not bothered by incremented results. Revolution wants BAM! Results. Revolution will fit reality to form new reality while Reformation will take time to form man to fit God’s reality.

Romantic poets were named that because they wrote romantic things of man. The true meaning of romance writers came from the romance languages. The romance languages were French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. These came from Latin and that was spoken by the Romans. So really it was all a movement to get back to antiquity and Rome. Human relationships and the release of emotions.

Theology is ideas externalized. The ideas come from a small percentage of people and those get translated into the general public’s life. The “little people” don’t think about the ideas driving their lives. The reshaping of the soul and minds of men come from the language that a culture uses and how the ideas are distributed throughout the communities.

Man is a passionate being. Revolutionaries seek to change man and his culture from the outside in, but the Romantics they come to know the passions and emotions of man and seek any change from the inside out.

Precursors to the Romantics
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was one who sought to release passion from reason through his essay On Passion versus Reason. A professing believer with strong convictions, but you can still do other contradictions. Music is one great way you can do this. This was a push of Rousseau...emotion apart from reason. Music enters and it’s very powerful and can enter your head and alter who you are even if you don’t consciously realize it.

Johann Goethe (1749-1832) wrote Sturm und Drang. Passion and impulse released from the objective realities. Poetry was created to remove a person temporarily from his natural state to feel something. Movies are this way today...they mold your emotions to get attached to something or someone...to scare you...to anger you...to make you cry, to make you love, to make you laugh.

Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) used folk tales from the past to create a nationalistic connection. Ballad of William Tell was used for this purpose so that people would begin to look for larger-than-life heroes with all their passion and leaving their reason behind.

Robert Burns (1759-1796) retouched the whole idea of the noble savage into the common man. He appealed to the common man to appear as normal and general as anyone else. The noble savage is seen as good. People in their primitive state is the best way to have a person. It is put into a new setting to rephrase it all and introduce it to a new audience where it will appeal to them. You speak the language of common man to connect with them.

William Blake (1757-1827) who wrote Songs of Innocence and was deemed insane for his whole adult life. It was a reflection on returning to man’s first and truest nature. Man before the idea of the fall. Man is inherently good and without evil...all innocent. He believed that man is really good and was made that way but the idea of evil was introduced and man believed it. Now he has to remember and return to being educated that he is really all good. It is the perfect unhinging of passion from reason.

William Cowper (1731-1800) with his Olney Hymns was a devout Christian in his sane moments but then hide away in bouts of deep depression. Whether it was related to medical or religious depression we don’t know. But whatever he wrote was very influential in the laying of the groundwork for Romanticism.

Walter Scott (1771-1832) began his career by translating other previous German romantics like Goethe and Schiller into English and so he got that background. He loved the idea of German nationalism and he was Scottish and attempted to use the German style to achieve his own end. In a sense he was a conservative revolutionary. He used the tactics of the Romantics for his own purpose. But the more we look at it the more we realize that there is not much difference between the left or right parties. It is more a matter of speed, not goal...they have the same goal in mind but can work at different speeds...slower for the left and faster for the right. This came out with his The Lady of the Lake.

Philip Freneau (1752-1832) focused on nature. Man is in a sense attempting to return to nature and his noble savage. But nature for nature’s sake. What is the pleasure coming from the physical world? He began talking about Mother Nature as Mother Nature as opposed to it being a figment of our nature. The Wild Honeysuckle portrayed this. He separates nature entirely from God and it being His creation even if it isn’t rational.

George Crabbe (1754-1832) focused on the rural life and being politically correct and loving all things agrarian and rural.

The Great Romantic Poets
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) - Rime of the Ancient Mariner
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) - Upon Westminster Bridge
Lord Byron (1788-1824) - Don Juan
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) - Prometheus Unbound
John Keats (1795-1821) - Ode on a Grecian Urn
George Darley (1795-1846) - Mermaid’s Vesper Hymn

They have the ability to take ugly things of the world and make it something beautiful and attractive to anyone. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but many beholders are crazy or ugly themselves. Unleashing passion however you want, it doesn’t matter how as long as you do. They take the most abstract things and focus so intently on it. Everything they write is in the context of their “Christian worldview” but they use it to tear the true Christian worldview down. They clothe it in Christianity and cloak it in Biblical theology...but it’s stripped of the real truth and is portrayed in order to tear down true Christianity. All their agenda was pushed as was to separate entirely the what people thought and knew to be true and what people felt to be true. But this is really impossible because what you feel is directly based off of what you think. This idea of feelings has been introduced to the modern church and now we have gotten away from thinking solidly to thinking due to emotion and feeling.

Heirs of the Romantics
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) - Ode to Beauty
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) - On Walden Pond
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) - Ichabod
Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) - The Raven
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) - On Religion and Society
James Montgomery (1771-1854) - The Christian Poet
Richard Mant (1776-1848) - The Happiness of the Blessed Dead
John Keble (1792-1866) - Tracts for the Times
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) - The Prophetical Office

They wanted to get in touch with their feelings...examine what they really thought and felt beneath the surface. This is the excuse they used to explore passion and romance. The eyes are turned inwards and thoughts focus on the self. Focus on man is pushed. It is a more democratic, humanistic, pantheistic, and spiritual movement. You separate how you think from what you feel and act which creates ultimately a whole new world. A world without ration.

When Revolution ultimately failed, those who held to the Revolutionary mindset attempted to bring about the Revolution by other means. They realized they would have to reshape the very soul of man. Thus Romantic Poets laid out this remarkable set of ideals that changed the way we think and feel, laying the foundation for a modern nihilism. So the things that matter most, we don’t feel anymore. And the things that matter least, we feel intensely.