{"id":940,"date":"2014-03-02T21:03:53","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T01:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=940"},"modified":"2014-04-19T18:49:35","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T22:49:35","slug":"invite-others-on-the-journey-3214","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=940","title":{"rendered":"Invite Others on the Journey (3\/2\/14)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning\u2019s sermon was part 7 of a series of messages based on the book \u201cThe Wesleyan Way:\u00a0 A Faith that Matters.\u201d\u00a0 The scripture underlying Rev. Potts’ message was Mark 8:31-38<\/span>
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He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” <\/span><\/p>\n

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. <\/span><\/p>\n

36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” NIV<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n

We like to hear good news.\u00a0 We want to hear a “Prosperity Gospel.”\u00a0 We want to be successful in this world.\u00a0 And yet we pray for healing and loved ones die.\u00a0 We still suffer.\u00a0 In our scripture, Jesus tells us that we must take up our cross; not a piece of jewelry, but a struggle.\u00a0 A hangman’s noose.\u00a0 An electric chair.\u00a0 He reminds us that we must give up our own way in order to follow Him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Twisted<\/a>

Twisted Communion Chalice<\/p><\/div>\n

We must be broken in order for God’s Sanctifying Grace to bring us to holiness.\u00a0 We must walk a road where we’re constantly challenged\u00a0 to give up our own way, our own thoughts, our own “things” in order to pick up the ways of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our communion chalices\u00a0 used to be ornate- silver.\u00a0 More like jewelry that points out human wealth and beauty instead of pottery that is reminiscent of our imperfections and our needs to be formed and molded.\u00a0 The chalice we use today is imperfect; twisted and tilted.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to find God, we must search ourselves for any man made remnants of pride and give it up.\u00a0 In our brokenness, we find\u00a0 community and forgiveness.\u00a0 To join the journey towards God and\u00a0 to invite others on that journey, we must start with our brokenness and total dependence on God.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning\u2019s sermon was part 7 of a series of messages based on the book \u201cThe Wesleyan Way:\u00a0 A Faith that Matters.\u201d\u00a0 The scripture underlying Rev. Potts’ message was Mark 8:31-38 We like to hear good news.\u00a0 We want to hear a “Prosperity Gospel.”\u00a0 We want to be successful in this world.\u00a0 And yet we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","category-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":947,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions\/947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}