If new creation has any chance of reshaping and remaking us, then we have to do the hard work of listening. And here's the thing. If we are listening to Jesus, we are going to be rattled now and then. Our way is going to be out of alignment with his way now and then. And then we have to choose who to follow.
From Luke 6, let me just rattle it off. Love enemies. Pray for those who mistreat you. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Refuse to use violence to get back at those who've used violence against you. Help the hurting. Be kind to those who are not grateful for your kindness. Be merciful. Judge yourself. Forgive. Let me say this in case it's not obvious yet. New Creation Living is not exclusively owned by any of our political parties. A Christian's priority is their citizenship in God's kingdom.
Children intuitively know that this world is amazing and amazing things happen in it all the time. Even kids in tough circumstances, any of you who's ever been around a kid going through a really, really hard time, they still know, and they will instinctively default to celebrating the goodness of this world. They feel called to it. It's like an obligation. They see this celebration as the work to which they have been called.
Just a little side note on the on the child in my house that decided to dig the holes in the middle of the grass. Before the whole digging hole event thing, my wife had actually come to this child and asked this child, "Would you like to go to Chick-fil-A and celebrate the grand reopening of Chick-fil-A?" To which the child responded, "No." And I quote, "Because he had a lot of work to do.” Referring of course to this project of digging holes just for the sheer joy of digging holes.
Without identity restoration, rebuilding, we cannot have reconciliation with our brothers and sisters. And our reconciliation happens when we encounter the ultimate other of humanity, that becomes a human being, that is Jesus. And when we encounter Jesus and our identity changed and transformed, we're able to relate to others in a different way.
This idea when Jesus envisioned his people, his family, he designed it so that each member would need each other. It's the picture that we get from this passage that we read at the beginning of the message. This one body with many parts, each with its own role to play, each with its own ability to make contributions. And it's a great analogy because when of course you think about the parts of your body, literally there is no part that can survive on its own without the others. And literally any part of the body that is removed the whole body feels it. Even the appendix, you take it out, you're going to feel it. Which once again, nothing in our culture prepares us for that. Nothing in our Culture shapes us or forms us or trains us for this. Almost everything in our Culture is working to make us more independent, right? So much so that the suggestion that we should be in a place where we depend on others for anything, actually almost feels wrong, doesn't it?
Our current series is called practicing faith because faith works like a piano. We practice it. It slowly gets into us, and we are gradually trained in how to live with and live under God with increasing trust and confidence in him. But if we don't practice it, it sits there maybe in some way part of us but not a shaping part of us. And yet faith is not meant to be a decoration. Faith is meant to be played. It's meant to be lived.
Prayer begins with his daughters and sons interacting with Their very good Father, being with their very good Father. Imagine if all we did this week, in these in between times is go back to this prayer. And I would encourage this for some of you, if all we did was pray the opening line, “Our Father in heaven”. Our Father, good and loving Father who is right here and right now with me as I go into Raley’s, with me as I search for Buzz and Woody, with me as I do whatever I'm doing. It might surprise some of us how prayer might start to move from being a bore toward being something like a meaningful relationship.
And so in our life of faith in Jesus, we have a similar choice to make as we did with the hypothetical violin. And if you're not into music, then picture getting a brand new set of golf clubs or a pair of snow skis or a new air fryer or whatever it is that captures that sense of new that goes, "Oh, wow. That'd be cool." Right? But we have the choice to make whether we are going to just pack this new life in Jesus that we've received, put it in a box marked religious stuff, and stuff it up in the closet, or are we going to learn how to live it?