Lent 2: Compose Your Spirit

• Second Sunday of Lent.
with Romans 12

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A video of the worship service was posted on Facebook 3/17/19 https://www.facebook.com/FUMCWV/videos/417317615723132/

Sermon number two of five in a series based on the book One Faithful Promise by Magrey deVega.

• “Offer your ordinary life to God in service.” (from Romans 12)
I’m reminded of one of the first sermons I ever shared. A woman with Down Syndrome talked about serving others through the simple act of giving a cup of water to someone in name of Jesus..

The idea behind today’s theme is that when you focus on God, change can happen. God is the changer, not you. Live in grace.

• Sermon series on the book One Faithful Promise. John Wesley earnestly wants us to take the idea of covenant seriously. Sin is not a scraped knee in need of cleaning maybe and a bandaid, it’s something much more serious, in need of professional care.

Step One (last week) Confide in God. Admit the seriousness of sinfulness.

Step Two, Compose Your Spirit. Composing your spirit means staying focused and serious about committing yourself to God. It is a call to humility.

• Recall Charlotte’s Web: Wilbur the pig was humble: low to the ground. Connected.
Reminded of Moses: at the burning bush, take off your shoes. Connect to the ground.

Even in obedience and humility, though, Moses still clings to *his* way. Thinks too little of self, not enough of God. God asks Moses to trust in God and not in himself. Throw down your staff.

• Compose your spirit. Pray for alignment of behavior. Yield your station.
Paul in Philippians 3, has reason to boast, yet discards it all to embrace grace of Christ. Let it go.

• “Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee. Exalted for thee or brought low for thee.” Not my will but thine.
Recall Namaan (a general with leprosy, 2 Kings 5) told by servant of Elisha to wash in Jordan.

• Recall the attitude of the prophet in Ezekiel 37.
“Can these bones live?” “Lord, you know.” Followed by obedience.

• Loving God, receive my fears and anxieties associated with full trust and surrender. Give me the resolve to turn my actions over to you, as well as my associations. Thank you for giving me the capacity to serve and to make a difference in your kingdom, regardless of the station in life in which I find myself. Amen.

• 357 Just As I Am

Romans 12:1-3 (MSG)

12 ^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

³ I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. ò