Why So Hard To Start New Chapter
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Intro
Intro
Could be- start w/ scene with Opey losing not from Andy’s girlfriend—He is in trouble and no idea why (Peggy)
SETI- belief that alien out there… old signal travelling from light years away… (start date, funding?) searching 24/7, 365… then finally one day ___ years ago...
*** Intelligence! very clear signs--
distinct form other space noises
regular intervals so some type of planning (24 hour day!)
repeating, conssitent pattern—obvious that not random
*** Clearly something that requires intelligence. then found out, closer than thought! Actually very close! Actually so close, down the hall…!
** Actually we know this idea already—ever feel like you’re the one showing up to a costue party—only to find out that you’re the only one who thought it was a costume party (real story); signals not being received!
cf calendar at my home, who is picking up whom
every husband who ever lived
cf oral vs written culture
every man married more than 6 hours--”the message is out there—I’m just not getting it! I’m dropping, he’s just not picking it up!”
Maybe with God too—sometimes the thing you’re not hearing is the key to getting where you’re not getting
*** Is it possible that teh thing your missing to move to the next place is not exactly new input, but new input to really hear what’s already coming to you...
Maybe it’s just humorous. Maybe inconvenient. But it might be something that’s mission-critical to your life. IN fact- breakthrough often comes with that critical shift in understanng (book by guy about habits; Andy Anderws—your best thinking…)
[also include idea of people looking in many directions to “read” or “hear” what’s already out there—horoscopes/stars, ghosts, “the universe”, fing shui]
Sometimes hearing what what you’re not hearing is the key to getting where you;re not getting!
*** Insert SCR Background)
Explain-
These two factors completely reinforce his certitude—personal conviction and social support—these are key ideas—it fueled him. It kept him going when the path went uphil and the people were hard to deal with… It fuels most efforts today—both good and not so good. Missions. Social programs. political campaigns. Arguments. Wars. these two are the reinforcement that we are going where we need to and just need to keep on keeping on! Of course, a dilemma arises when people—2 or 200 million—are equally sure of opposite things—gun rights, global warming, creation/evolution, ford/chevy, margerine/butter, crunchy green beans or soggy
Paul’s personal conviction and social support kept him going—but the story shouts this truth to us—personal conviction and social support are no substitute for divine direction… (papers from priests—but note also move from holding coats to leading attack) (I just know it’s from God!; And I’ve found others who tell me so, too!)
The problem of course is the presence of blind spots—(Cf diamonds—occlusions??)
When [information is unavailable] blind spots are inevitable (bling spots are inevitable where awareness is unavailable (hearing is compromised)
** Cf trip, football frisbee, concussion, stitches, eye swollen shut, trip to Rock city—guess what they have an abundance of? ROCKS—shoulder bruising. Imagine if I somehow didn’t realize that my shoulder bruising was connected to my eye injury. there is no direct relationship—only indirect. And that’s what so many of us are going through—a swollen eye is responsible for my bruised shoulder. Who would have thought?!...
The story makes clear that these two features are involved in whats going on (God meets Paul’s two with his own two): overwhelming force (power) and entirely personal;
teh force—teh only account where you get brighter than the sun—God is invading Paul’s world in a way that is more substantial than everything else; and then there are the goads—was an instrument used to train (or maintain) oxen: when you were training a young ox to work with a load, he didn’t always want to cooperate, so he would register his dissatisfaction by kicking his hind feet back to try to get it off. And if it was a single ox, teh driver would hold a strong sturdy pole with a pointed iron tip where he was kicking to make that an unpleasant ordeal. Eventually the message was clear—teh load may not be what you want, but it’s better than the alternative! The saying is in Jewish literature, and was popular concept in both ancient Roman and Greek—IOW, everybody knew what this was about—and for them, it was essentially trying to push back against teh direction of the gods in your life, or against your destiny—think of a 4-year-old--”No, I don’t want to!
makes clear these two factors—overwhelming force and entirely personal—teh force—brighter than the sun, kick against goads--”I’m bigger...”; entirely personal—speaking in Hebrew (exceptional, cf other SCR), only he got the whole vision, by name—name given from birth—God showed up for him that day
the personal appeal—not the use of the language—Paul prided himself in his Hevrew heritage—when so many other Jews were leaving that culture behind, Paul held fast. And it was how he thought. And then you notice Jesus using his Jewish name. ...
*** Maybe this just about overwhelming force meeting underlying conviction
Q- why couldn’t it be easier? Why does it have to be so hard to get to the next thing? For Paul, as for so many of us, it’s because we are so stuck in the last thing. (place)*** Paul so sure—sometimes God has to turn out the lights on the old world to get us into the new one (like someone locked into FB until phone goes dead)
*** Paul so sure—sometimes God has to turn out the lights on the old world to get us into the new one (like someone locked into FB until phone goes dead)
Powerful here—only place “goads” included— literature—against gods, against destiny—even more—cf Gamaliel , then tells who trained him (also as part of talking about conversion—Paul saw experience w/ Gamaliel as important—both to show stong Jewish heritage AND foolishness of not listening)
Sometimes what you need is to hear a new voice—but so often what you need is to hear an old voice with new ears. And the only way to do that is to overcome the powerful soundtrack already playing in your head
*** Get this—If you don’t know how this is working you’ll never understand why you have teh shoulder pain, and you will just keep having it.
IMPOICATION--
you may need to turn down the sound of your own certainty to hear ...
1- when facing unrelenting frustration of a door that won’t open (Cf Paul- learned to listen)
2- when pain isn’t going away like it should be (messenger of satan—any kind of pain or problem that must be daily surrendered)
3- when voice of your [contemporaries] doesn’t line up with the voice of your authorities (message you prefer isn’t coming from the ones you’re meant to listen to)
NOte some really important parts of Paul’s biogtaphy--
1- he doesn’t move on easily (remains headstrong—Cf Ezekiel—parallels with both tenacity and missionary responsibility—I think if Paul had a type he saw himself patterned after, it would be Ezekiel)
2- he doesn’t stop digging until he gets to the bottom—Cf going to SCR
*** Paul understood that if the Jesus He had fought was the God He had served, He must have been wrong about God
** This is why the goads matter sp much—understand that Paul (Saul) was oen of the elite teachers back in the day—as a young man, he had studied with the premiere rabbi of the land—Gamaliel. This was like an ivy league edication. That man was brilliant, and he passed on that brilliance to his powerfully intellectual student. Studying with the Rabbi Gamaliel was like getting a PhD from Harvard—you just couldn’t get any better. But there is a piece missing. Go back to ch 22, see him identified… Byut then go all the way back to very early in the story, ch 5, and see what this wise Harvard-level professor was saying… Paul had been soaking this up. Which makes his earlier hesitance understandable. Ch 8, he isn’t throwing the rocks, he’s only watching the coats… That wise warning of Gamaliel… but he eventually shook himself free of that restrictive counsel and joined with the crowd...
*** If God pinpoints an error in your approach, it’s in order to invite you into truer living
Exhortation / Inspiration
God will not let go of His yes for your life
*** As long as Paul was clawing at the wrong door, he would never find the right one—note one little word--”sent”; later Paul “am apostle”—more than his job, but his destiny??
*** Apostle—trailblazer—spearhead—Paul is going to be a spearhead for something—God’s goal in him same as you and me--
get the right things in you
** Cf Moses—God’s plan all along was for him to lead his people…, so God spent the first 40 years of his life training him in the language and the mindset and the ways of the royal court—he was cultured, but still impatient and reactive; then he put him out to pasture watching sheep, and for the next 40 years God cultivated the tender, patient, attentive heart of a shepherd; so after 40 uears of training in the head of a king, and then 40 years in trining in the heart of a shepherd, he was ready to take on the role of leading the peopole of God out of Egyptian bondage into their own land, to begin life as their own nation.
*** Consider what God had been putting into Paul—that tenacious firmness, that fiery zeal, that uncompromised courage, that eagerness to move ahead, and that powerful training to keep him thinking a steo ahead of just about everybody else in the room—including his command of the Hebrew Scriptures. All these qualities make him the perfect person to be an apostle even before he was one.
get you into the right thing(s)
Here’s where it gets so sticky sometimes—without understanding why, Gdo will often move us to new circumstances by removing the possibility of staying in teh old ones. God will get us to a different spot by making it impossible to stay in the same one.
So it;s getting th eright things into us and getting us into the right things:
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Hard headed? YES! God’s yeas for Paul is a hard-headed spearhead—Cf ginsu knives—cf Ezekiel—cf stoned and left for dead (how does that happen? head injury?)—bythinia—agabus—praise in jail—stoned then back into the same touwn (?lystra”)—run out of Thess, on to Berea, run out of berea…--
**** You know when he goes right back into the same city (?lystra), the people areound him must have been saying, “what’s wrong with you, man? You are so hard headed!” And his simple response, “you’re welcome.”
Sometimes it’s like we’ve brought the right fork to the wrong plate—it’s not that we can’t eat this, it’s just not the one prepared for us,
and often part of what God has so wisely worked in us is resolve...
**** Here’s the real genius of Paul—he understood that if He was ever going to get this life right, he didn’t just need a better message in the moment, he needed better hearing—see He was already a Hebrew scholar…; somehow he had missed… Cf Jesus—you search the SCR’s… the problem hadn’t been with the Scriptures but with the searchers…
Cf Isaiah re: new thing several times, but note is 48:6
6 “You have heard; now see all this;
and will you not declare it?
From this time forth I announce to you new things,
hidden things that you have not known.
See, it’s new but only because it wasn’t easy to see before
*** Paul was concerned—how have I been so wrong about the God I thought I new— goes back and searches the same SCR—(cf Gal)—then look—starts to use the very same SCR’s that used to tell Him that Jesus was a liar to PROVE that Jesus was the Messiah—what happened? New ears for old information
*** Cf Operation Market Garden—by Dec 1944, war over—3 bridges…, dropped behind lines… one big problem—before going in, testing equip—walkie talkies aren’t working right, but no one wants to speak up… think “maybe most of them are fine...” They drop in, can’t communicate. Message can’t get through, troops don’t know how to move, and me die because of it. There is no mechanism for the messages to get where they’re mean to go. AND THIS is Paul’s concern—he doesn’t just need the new message. He needs to deal with teh breakdown in the mechanism taht failed to get the message.
So he went back to the Scriptures. “How could I be serving God by opposing Jesus is Jesus is really the God I was serving? It can’t be. Somehow when I was serving God, I was really serving my version of God that didn’t match the real one. And I was sure and wrong all at the same time!
This is at the heart of what we are after—his certainty was faulty. And the very certainty he had was what kept him from knowing what he needed to know.
THis is part of what happens in faith. It’s for some of the best reasons I guess. Because teh point of faith is being certain even of what you can’t see, if we don’t do the hard work of studying the Scriptures and allowing them to test our understanding, we remain certain of teh wrong things. There are so many even who believe in their own maturity because of those two features—personal conviction and social support. And like Paul, they have major blind spots because they have turned off their hearing. “I know what I need to know”
And still you find one or more of those three things—persistent pain, persistent frustration, and dissonance between the position of your heart and the direction of your authorities.
For Jesus, in the end, it’s the one thing that will determine, when the world is making it hard to remain true, whether or not we will be able to stay with Him—having ears to hear...
God wants to show you a new thing that was always His will for you, but you’ve got to let go of some old things forst...
God wants to give you new hearing for ancient words that have been speaking this message to you all along, but it hasn’t been obvious… the thinking that got you hear got you here, and that’s where that level of thinking will get you
God is at work both putting the right things in you, and getting you to the right things—where is frustration fixed in your story; where is pain so persistent…, where is the wisdom of your authority and the inclination of your heart staying in a state of dissonance?
It’s easy to see how he would be hard to convince—to take a different position would be a major shift—a huge departure from life as he had known it. And that’s what it takes, because there is no such thing as slightly saved. Your next chapter may be a brand new start, and you have resisted because you realize that you aren’t talking about adding a little bit of religion to any already pretty good life. YOu are changing systems. YOu are changing trains. you are swapping systems. ...