Message From Mars Hill: “With”
Jun 23rd, 2010 | By Skye Jethani | Category: Faith, Features, Formation, PreachingLast Sunday I spoke at Mars Hill Church in Grandville, Michigan. Listen to the full sermon “With”.
Below I’ve also included a number of quotes cited in the message:
The older brother: “All these years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.” -Luke 15:29
The father: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” -Luke 15:31
“There truly is no division between sacred and secular except what we have created. And that is why the division of the legitimate roles and functions of human life into the sacred and secular does incalculable damage to our individual lives and the cause of Christ. Holy people must stop going into ‘church work’ as their natural course of action and take up holy orders in farming, industry, law, education, banking, and journalism with the same zeal previously given to evangelism or to pastoral and missionary work.” -Dallas Willard
“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.” -from the film Shall We Dance (2004)
There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings. The secular world of today values and cultivates only the first level believing this is where the real business of mankind is done…. But we know that the deep level of prayer is the most important thing in the world. It is at this deep level that the real business of life is determined.” -Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, page 9.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’” -Revelations 21:3
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A very good listen. The more I learn about Christ and the Father, the simpler it all is – except there is such great depth and width to it all. More than I can grasp.
Seems like we end up complicating it at times and straying from the essence – “…Christ in us, the hope of glory..”.
Just curious…how would you reconcile the “be not conformed to this world” in Romans 12:2 and avoid the warnings of 1 John 2:15-17 with the Dallas Willard quote about taking up holy orders in the various vocations of life?
Skye,
Listened to this while folding clothes after longing throughout my day of diapers and whiny kids to know how to get rid of the bitterness that has been creeping into my life the last few days. God reminded me through your words. He’s with me and loving me. Thanks!
I listened to the podcast on my walk to work in the Uk yesterday. Thank you so much for reminding me of the refreshing truth that God desires to be WITH me every moment of the day. It’s so simple, but so challenging to find our identity in Him rather than what we do. Thanks again.
Glad to see you quoting the Quaker Thomas Kelly, his book is amazing.
I’ve listened to this sermon three times now, and I’m not done yet. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your words are a real encouragement to me. And I’m doubly impressed that someone can quote Brother Lawrence and Jennifer Lopez in the same sermon!
I just started to subscribe to the Mars Hill podcasts. Your sermon was my first. I decided to listen to it while I mowed my lawn (I know, of all things to be doing while listening to something like what you were talking about). It has woken me up. The message was so powerful, and I was just expecting to find something to past the time. What a powerful message. It was exactly something my heart was searching for but I was not looking for. Thank you for sharing that. I just had to find out how to contact you and say thanks. That was such a needed message for me.
I too like to download sermons from Mars Hill and listen to them in various/unusual settings, this is how I came across Skye and his liberating sermon. I’d now like to listen to more of his sermons but it seems (from Skyebox) that you cannot download them? Can anybody help me here?
[...] One of my friends from Chicago was out here at the end of July. Thankfully God timed it so that we could steal a few hours together just shopping and talking in a very cute part of Baltimore. That day in those four hours God brought a perspective I needed. She had listened to a sermon centered around this idea of being “with” God. Sounds simple right? Well just listen to the sermon. It could just change the way you think about every moment of your day and every circumstance you face and how you face it. Being “with” God in every moment of every day. That is what He asks of us. I would explain it more, but I wouldn’t do it justice. And plus, this might be one of the few sermons in life I just kept wishing would not end. (http://www.skyejethani.com/message-from-mars-hill-with/575/) [...]