Recreate Church, Pastor Michael Shockley—Service, Sunday, January 1, 2023

Happy New Year!

Today, Pastor Michael is starting off our New Year with a throwback to a responsorial reading of the Bible.  Michael is reading the 23rd Psalm, likely the most famous verse in the Bible and our church audience reads back to him. 

Psalms 23 (CSB) 1 The LORD is my shepherd;

I have what I need.

2 He lets me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside quiet waters.

3 He renews my life;

he leads me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.

4 Even when I go through the darkest valley,

I fear no danger,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

6 Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD

as long as I live.

Michael is concentrating on verse 5. What about those days when our cup (money, time or energy) isn’t overflowing?  The only way to sustainably  give to others is to have a cup that is overflowing.  We need to rethink and realign how we think of ‘giving of ourselves’.  When we share something of ourselves, there is an ‘outflow’.  That’s a good thing, a wonderful thing.

So, we’re going to talk about overflowing in a study over the next few weeks.  The categories we’ll cover are: time, resources and energy.  Today, we’re covering ‘time’.

Time.  Time seems to be (and actually is, in fact) different in speed; sometimes fast…sometimes slow.  Like when you’re having fun and doing things you love: time flies.  But try something you don’t like and time stands still, it seems.  Einstein’s ‘Special Theory of Relativity’ states that the rate that time passes depends on your frame of reference.  The point is, time isn’t the same!

So with that preamble out of the way, we find Michael in Luke talking about Jesus telling the story of a man going from Jerusalem to Jericho.  Robbers attacked the poor guy and left him half dead on the side of the road.  A priest was walking down the same road and went to the other side, so he didn’t have to help the poor guy.  A Levite, walking down the same road, did the exact same thing.  Talk about not helpful, jeesh!  

But a Samaritan saw the poor guy and helped him, bandaging his wounds, taking him to an inn and even paying the innkeeper money to help the poor guy.  The definition of a good neighbor!  And a Good Samaritan, too!

God gives us opportunities to help others like this; as the Samaritan did.  Do we always take the time to help?   Do we have an overflowing cup, as this message started out with?  We need that to align prioritizing our time.

Would we have time to give to the thing God wants us to do or is our schedule full?   

When you make God a priority and give Him your time, studying the Bible, spending time in prayer and making time for your spiritual connection with Him, you’ll find that cup will get filled back up!

(CSB Study Bible Notes) The road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a distance of seventeen miles with a descent of more than three thousand feet in elevation, was a dangerous route through desert country. It had many places where robbers could lie in wait. It is possible that the priest and the Levite . . . passed by on the other side of the road because they thought the wounded man was dead and they would become ritually unclean by touching him, but it is more likely that they were afraid of being attacked by the same robbers or simply did not want to be bothered with the inconvenience of helping the man.

Verses can be found today in Psalms 23 and Luke 10: 30-37.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.