CrossTrainers

Date: March 24th 2010

Speaker: Bob Stouffer

Title: God and Time

Psalm 90:4

This week Bob closed out the book “Infinite Impact” by Stu Webber.

He began with the riddle from The Hobbit

This thing all things devours:

Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;

Gnaws iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal;

Slays king, ruins town,

And beats high mountains down.

What is it?  TIME!

Bob wasn’t planning on doing this message but God took him on an about face to look at God’s perspective on time.

The question was asked, “What is God’s perspective on time?”  Bob asked us to discuss this, deeply, not on a surface level.  We were to discuss what we know is doctrinally true about God and time.

God is Eternal

God alone is eternal, believers in Jesus Christ will experience “everlasting” life but we are not ETERNAL beings like God

Dr. Wayne Grudem, in his book Systematic Theology, defines God’s eternality as follows:

“God has not beginning, end, or succession of moments in His own being, and He sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time” (Grudem p. 168)

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit — All three persons, dwell as one ETERNALLY

“…Time does not change God, it has no effect on His being…” (Grudem p. 169)

Jesus was fully human when on this earth, but, since He was fully God, time did not change His divine nature.  Time contstrained His human essence, but His divine nature was not changed.

“…the passing of time does not add to or detract from God’s knowledge: He knows all things past, present and future..” (Grudem p. 169)

God has NEVER ceased to exist

He alone can say, “I AM” !

“The fact that God never began to exist can also be concluded from the fact that God created all things and that He Himself is an immaterial Spirit” (Grudem p. 169)

GOD IS IMMATERIAL SPIRIT.

“Before God created the Universe, there was no ‘time’ at leas not the sense of succession of moments one after another.  Therefore, when God created the universe, He also created time.” (Grudem p. 169)

God views the past as vividly as the present and as vividly as the future.

Psalm 90:4 shows that God views a thousand years as yesterday.

“… all of past history is viewed by God with great clarity and vividness: all of time since the creation is to God as if it just happened” (Grudem p. 170)

“..any one day seems to God to be present in his consciousness forever” (Grudem p. 170)

“..in God’s perspective any extremely long period of time is as if it just happened.  And any very short period of time (such as one day) seems to God to last forever..” (Grudem p. 170)

God is Timeless

“.. God is Timeless..” (Grudem p. 170)

“..God created time and is Lord over time..” (Grudem p. 171)

“..Thus God somehow know stands above time and is able to see it all as present in His consciousness.” (Grudem p. 171)

Some theologians “have objected that God cannot be ‘timelessly eternal’ in the sens described aboe, because the moment He creates something, He is acting in time and therefore He must exist in time.” (Grudem p. 172)

God uses time for His own purposes (Grudem p. 172)

God uses time to display His glory (Grudem p. 172)

“..as God’s peopl we will experience the fullness of joy in God’s presence for all eternity – not in the sense that we will no longer experience time, but in the sense that our lives will go on forever.” (Grudem p. 173)

This thing all things devours:

Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;

Gnaws iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal;

Slays king, ruins town,

And beats high mountains down.

This thing – time -all things devours – but this thing – time – DOES NOT DEVOUR GOD!!

Makes your head hurt doesn’t it?  Our heads should hurt when we are attempting to discover new truths about God.  We are told to love the Lord our God with all of our MINDS.

According to Bob, the best sentence in Stu’s book appears on page 3.

“..God is the lor of our entire timelines.  At the same ‘moment’ He hovers over our present, He also walks in our past and goes before our futures.” (Webber, Infiniate Impact p.3)

Bob closed with the following:

CS Lewis once said, “The future is somethign which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

Bob’s timeline started in August of 1958

How will  your earthly timeline end?  When will your earthly timeline end?

How will we use our lives?  In his book, Stu Weber point out that the decisions we make about how we live our lives “shapes our destiny and the interlocking destinies of many, many other people” (Webber,  p. xix)

I want my life to count for something!

I want to make the Infinate Impact of which Stu Weber wrote about.

I want to share the sentement of Mr. Kenneth P. Bowles “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid broadside, throughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow, what a ride!’”

Flame on!!

Click HERE for the Full Audio for this message.

(pj quoting Bob’s notes for Crosstrainers 3/24/2010)

CrossTrainers

Date: March 17th 2010

Speaker: Mike Swaim

Title: Trail Markers

Mike started by asking every guy to pray for 2 military couples that will be coming to the Military Marriage Conference as they get in their cars after CT.

Erecting a Marker as a Remembrance: 1 Samuel 7

1 Samuel 7:3 The children of Israel had been worshiping other gods. God said that if you put away the symbols of the foreign gods and remember who the God of the universe is God will deliever them.

There are plenty of foreign “gods” in our world today. There are probably a few guys here who need to lay down their “god” and receive deliverance.

1 Samuel 7:10 – How many shots were fired? How many shots were fired? NONE!

1 Samuel 7:11 – What happened here? Bloodbath! The philistines were their enemy, who is your enemy? The devil. What does a fight against satan look like when the Lord fights for you? Bloodbath.

1 Samuel 7:12 – What did Samuel do after the battle, he set up a marker.

What markers are in your life?

“Last week I heard about a marker in the life of my friend Bob Stouffer. He was awarded the Excellence in Education Award at Drake. Upon receiving his award, Bob referenced a marker in his life, coming to Christ at age 36.” (Read the full acceptance speech here on Bob’s March 10, 2010 blog post.)

Picture the Timeline

“Whenever we become aware of a situation where God, who is above and beyond time, steps into time on our behalf, we ought to place a marker on the timeline, even if its only a deep scratch in our memory”

What is the significance of the marker that Joshua put up at Mizpah?

It was permanent and it was there for everyone else to see.

Do your kids and grandkids know about the markers in your life?

Some of Mike Swaim’s Markers:

• Memories of early life in Panama running around the military base
• Memory of first prayer, at 5 years old crying about going to school, sitting at a small table with Dad. Prayed to be able to go to West Point one day. 5 years old
• Memory of a church in Fort Wayne, Indiana (Emmaus Lutheran Church) at third grade. “I didn’t realize that my grandfather had planted the church, but all of my extended family was there. I remember sitting there looking at this little red candle. I thought a lot about God as I looked at that candle.” That is a marker.
• Memory of memorizing scripture in California. Trying to memorize more than the other girl in the class. Remembering
• “You can drive by my marker in Des Moines. When you drive by Rosevelt High School, under the walk way that goes over 235. That spot is where I used to live, the first house I lived in Des Moines, where I started to grow in my faith”
• I remember when I was nominated as choir director, that meant that I had to be at church on the Sunday morning when this guy gave his testimony. He said that he had met Jesus Christ that week and he had been so impacted by it that he bought a bible for every person in the church. He said, ‘I don’t know about you but if you haven’t met Jesus Christ I want to help you do that today’ On that day I came to Jesus Christ. I still have that Bible, it is a marker in my life.”

What are the markers in your life?

Turn to one guy and talk about those markers, particularly those markers of redemption in your life.

The marked doesn’t do us any good if we don’t tell someone.

The marker is only significant if you share it with succeeding generations.

How we engage the past identifies our present and shapes our future

Have you placed any markers on the time line and would succeeding generations understand their significance?

Click HERE for the Full Audio for this message.

(pj’s notes for Crosstrainers 3/17/2010)

CrossTrainers

Date:  March 10th 2010

Speaker: Jerry Foster

Title: Why are you here?

Take a look at Acts 17:24-26 notice the last phrase “the exact places where they should live”

God has chosen for you to live exactly where you are on this time line of human history.  He chose you for this time, this place.

Q: If you believe that, what does that do for you?  What are the ramifications of this?

What is amazing about this time line is that it goes on and on but we are only one little part of it.

1.  We are not accidents

Look at Psalm 139:1-16

Think about what it means that you were “knit together” by God.

David realized that God cared enough for God to “knit” him together and to be near him where ever he could go.

David’s confidence was based on the fact that he was created by God and he was special to Him.

We need this confidence as we look back on our time line.  These things are not accidents.

2.  Our place on the time line was determined by God Himself

God is sovereign over whole time line.  All the good, the bad, every experience is used by God and has a reason.

Jerry talked about when he was at his deepest part of despair, He brought someone along to bring $50 to help him out, it was just the right time on his time line.  It made a huge impact and began a change in him that only God could do.  It was one little dot on one short part of the time line of history but it was a critical point.

When we look back through our experiences we it often becomes painfully clear why God did those things to bring us to this point.

Q: When you look at your life, what evidence do you see that your life is meant for this place and this time?

Q: How do you live your life in the moment?

3.  We are called to a special purpose at a specific time in God’s sovereign design.

Look at Ephesians 2:10

We need to be constantly asking why we are at this point in the time line and what we can do to impact the time line going forward, future generations.

Each one of us is unique and designed for a purpose

We believe that we were created by God, so we can believe that God did so with a purpose, not just for now but for generations to come.

God has a design on this day, this moment, this very second.  He has a design on what is going on in your head right now.

Q: Do you believe that to be true?
Q: How would you describe your unique design
Q: What should you be doing to satisfy that purpose?

(PJ’s Notes from CrossTrainers on 3-10)

For a full audio version of this message click HERE