Great day today at PFA.

A new family had just moved to Prescott and after the service the husband told me this story.

He said “when you ask us if we had any prayer request to come forward I did. I ask God to help me find a job soon.

As soon as the prayer time was over I went back to my seat and my cell phone began to ring even though I had thought that I turned it off. It kept ringing so I left the sanctuary and answered it. It was someone wanting to hire me….I got a job just seconds after prayer.”

I love stories like that. It makes what I do as a pastor so amazing to see people ask and then receive. 🙂

Here is the outline to today’s message.

CAGE FIGHTERS
Living a Life of Spiritual Adventure
Pastor Steve Lummer
PART 3

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8

CAGES CHRISTIANS GET LOCKED INTO

* The Cage of Responsibility—Practicing responsible irresponsibility with Nehemiah
* The Cage of Routine—Learning the danger of empty ritual with Moses
* The Cage of Assumptions—Breaking out of the eight-foot ceiling with Abraham
* The Cage of Guilt—Reconditioning our conditioned responses with Peter
* The Cage of Failure—Experiencing shipwrecks and snakebites with Paul
* The Cage of Fear—Climbing the cliff with Jonathan

Today : The cage of Routine

Do you have a hard time believing God for the LITTLE stuff while taking for granted the BIG stuff?

Right now you have no sensation of motion —–we are all just sitting in this room . But in reality …the reality is that we are sitting on a planet that is spinning around its axis at approximately 1000 miles per hour. Planet earth will make one full rotation in the next 24 hours….Not only that, but we are also hurdling through space at approximately 67,000 miles per hour…..and you thought you weren’t going any where today ..
Before the day is over we will have traveled 1.3 million miles in our annual trek around the sun…

Let me ask us all a question – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME WE THANKED GOD FOR KEEPING US IN ORBIT? …WE NEVER SAY …”man I hope we making another rotation today….but we did it again yesterday.

Isn’t it strange that we have a hard time believing God for the LITTLE STUFF in life while at the same time we take the BIG STUFF  for granted.?

WE TAKE THE CONSTANTS FOR GRANTED….AND THAT CAN BE A PROBLEM WHEN IT COMES TO GOD TOO…HE IS THE ULTIMATE CONSTANT…GOD IS SO GOOD THAT IT IS SO EAST TO TAKE HIM FOR GRANTED.

1. THE RUT OF ROUTINE CAUSES BLINDNESS.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—John 14:16

2. THE BURNING BUSH EXPERIENCE HAPPENED IN A BORING PLACE.
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”  -Exodus 3:1-5

3. THE PLACE AND PACE PRINCIPLE.
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  Matthew 17:1

4. THE HEALTHY CHOICE OF  HOLY ROUTINES.
The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Isaiah 29:13

5. THE DECISION TO THROW DOWN .
Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.  3 The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” -Exodus 4:2-5
In Exodus 3, God called Moses to lead the greatest rescue operation in history-the exodus of Israel out of Egypt. But Moses had a laundry list of excuses and concerns. In all fairness, you would too!

Moses isn’t just concerned about the Egyptians. He wonders whether the Israelites will embrace his leadership. He says in Exodus 4:1: “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, “The Lord did not appear to you?’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’

‘A shepherd’s staff,’ Moses replied.

The Lord said, ‘Throw it down on the ground.’

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake and he ran from it.

Then the Lord said, ‘Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.’

So Moses reached out and grabbed it and it became a shepherd’s staff again. ‘Perform this sign, and they will believe you,’ the Lord told him. ‘Then they will realize that the Lord-the God of Abraham, the God if Isaac, and the God of Jacob-really has appeared to you’.”

Like all ancient shepherds, Moses had a staff. It was probably a six-foot long wooden rod that was curved on one end. It was a walking stick. It was a weapon. It was a prod used to guide his flock. And Moses never left home without it. It was his badge. It was his ID.

The shepherd’s staff represented two things to Moses: identity and security.
Let me ask you the question that God asked Moses: what’s in your hand?

Where do you find your identity? What is the focus of your security?

Is it a job? A relationship? A brokerage account? A title or degree or position?

There is nothing wrong with any of those things, but let me cut to the chase. If you find your security in anything other than a relationship with God then you have a false sense of security. And if you find your identity in anything other than a relationship with God then you have a false sense of identity.

You need to throw down your staff.

What if Moses had held on to his staff?

Here’s my hunch: his staff would have remained a staff. His staff would have remained an inanimate object. He would have forfeited the miracle!

Moses experienced some amazing miracles during his lifetime. He had box seats for the ten plagues; the parting of the Red Sea; and the manna in the wilderness. But there is something unique about the staff becoming a snake. As far as we know, this is the first miracle Moses ever experienced!

If Moses had held on to the staff he would have remained a shepherd. He would have spent the rest of his life counting sheep. Here’s the bottom line: if you hold on to whatever is in your hand you’ll never experience the miracles God wants to perform!

* Parts of this message were taken with permission from Mark Batterson’s book Wild Goose Chase

This Sunday we continue the series Cage Fighters with a special Father’s day message, FROM DUDE TO DAD.

I always look forward to Father’s day @ PFA .

Here is the outline to the message notes:

CAGE FIGHTERS
PART 2
THE CAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY

“What shall I do about my son?” –  1 Samuel 10:2 (niv)

FROM DUDE TO DAD

1. RESPONSIBLE IRRESPONSIBILITY.
Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”  But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
– Luke 9:59-60

2. SUCCESSFUL FAILURES.
And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. – Genesis 1:4

3. MOMENTS OF CONCEPTION.
“What is it that you want ?“ – Nehemiah 2:4
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. – Psalm 37:4

4. TIME TO QUIT PRAYING.
Well done, good and faithful servant – Matthew 25:23

5. SIGNS FOLLOW DECISIONS .
And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. – Mark 16:20

6. GET YOUR FEET WET.
And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap.” – Joshua 3:9-23

7.  BE THE BEST CUP BEARER YOU CAN BE
And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. 2 Therefore the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart.”So I became dreadfully afraid, – Nehemiah 2:1-2

* The bullet points are used with permission from Mark Batterson’s book Wild Goose Chase.

Here is the first outline to the newest series called Cage Fighters.

CAGE FIGHTERS
Living a Life of Spiritual Adventure
Pastor Steve Lummer
PART 1

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8

CAGES WE GET LOCKED INTO

* The Cage of Responsibility
* The Cage of Routine
* The Cage of Assumptions
* The Cage of Guilt
* The Cage of Failure
* The Cage of Fear

YOU KNOW YOU ARE CAGED IN WHEN…….

1. You Feel Too Tamed, Too Civilized and Too Caged Inn.
So the LORD God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. Genesis 2:19

2. You Opt for the Accessorized life or the Adventurous life.
Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” 22 But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Mark 10:17-31

3. Your Guardian Angles  Yawn.
For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. Psalm 91:11

Next week we look at the Cage Of Responsibility for Father’s Day in a message entitled FROM DUDE TO DAD.

Have you ever noticed how fast thing can get old?

I mean what happens a year after you buy a brand new car? – That “new car smell” seems to get smothered in other smells that are not so new.

Solomon had come to the conclusion that after a while everything gets real old real fast.

This weekend I wanted to look into a teaching that DECLARES that SOLOMON WAS WRONG!

Here is a brief outline to the notes.

SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
PASTOR  STEVE LUMMER

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.  10 Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”?  – ECCLESIASTES 1:9,10 (NIV)

SOLOMON WAS WRONG!

Ecclesiastes 1:12  I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Again in 2:17 – So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
But God hates things to get old – He said in Isaiah 43:14  : 18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 Behold, I am doing a new thing!

WHAT YOU REMEMBER SHAPES WHO YOU ARE BECOMING!.

Luke 1:26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin ….37 the angel said to her, “WITH God nothing will be impossible.
Virgin Birth? WOW! that a little bit new.

IN A CULTURE WERE WE HAVE BASICALLY “BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT” – HERE’S A FEW NEW ONES FOR YA.

1. A  SAVED TO SERVE LIFESTYLE.

2. A  COMMITMENT TO LOYALTY

3. A SENSE OF FAMILY

The ? Nothing new under the son or nothing impossible under the son?

Some things get old real fast …. WITHOUT GOD!
Marriages, work, family, life, vision, relationships and even ministry can get real old without God’s refreshing spirit.

Is it going to be nothing NEW or something NEW?

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassion’s fail not 23 they are new every morning – Lamentations 3:22,23