What Are We Made Of? Part 2: Upward Series

What Are We Made Of?

The DNA of Millville Avenue

Part 2: Upward

The mission of the Millville Avenue Church of God is to help people know God, to grow people into fully devoted disciples of Jesus, and to equip people to go impact their world for Christ.

Icebreaker: Two elderly women were out driving in a large car and both could barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along they came to an intersection. The stoplight was red but they just went on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself "I must be losing it, I could have sworn we just went through a red light."

After a few more minutes they came to another intersection and the light was red again and again they went right through. This time the woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting nervous and decided to pay very close attention to the road and the next intersection to see what was going on.

At the next intersection, sure enough, the light was definitely red and they went right through and she turned to the other woman and said, "Mildred! Did you know we just ran through three red lights in a row! You could have killed us!" Mildred turned to her and said, "Oh, am I driving?"

Brothers and sisters, the way things are going in our world and country we wonder who’s driving or if anyone is driving at all.

We live in a world of unrest and untruth. Turn on the TV and listen to the news. Read it in the paper. It’s everywhere.

Intro: Let me ask you: what’s driving your life? Better question: When it comes to your life, WHO is in the driver’s seat? You see, whether we realize it or not, we all yearn for some kind of authority to give us guidance. Some of us turn to ourselves for that final authority, only to find that we really don’t know as much as we think we do. Some of us turn to our respective political parties, only to find that in the end, they let us down. Some of us turn to bumper-sticker philosophies like, “Life is about learning to dance in the rain,” or “No matter where you go, there you are.” Cute, right? Easy to remember. But that’s doesn’t do you much good when where you go isn’t where you want to be. Or when dancing in the rain only leaves you feeling cold and wet.

-By the way, I actually looked up some bumper-sticker philosophy and I have to say that my favorite is, “Eat Well, Stay Fit….Die anyway.” For all the health nuts here today.

-It was about A.D. 50, some forty years before John wrote his Gospel,

PHILO, a Jew of Alexandria, COINED a word that lumped all the

knowable things of God into a single package. That word was LOGOS.

In this word "LOGOS" was compressed all that the JEWS and GREEKS knew

of the reasoning and manifestations of God. It was a useful term and

people soon began to refer to the "Logos" rather than go into detail

about the way God worked in human affairs. So the term "Logos" was

the common way of referring to God’s revelation of Himself. When

those asked what is it that God does and how does He interact with

mankind - they would simply express that "GOD IS THE LOGOS." There

was an understanding here as to how our God worked in humanity.

By the time John was ready to begin the writing of his Gospel, the

term LOGOS was the common way of referring to God’s revelation of

Himself. Of course it was an ABSTRACT an IMPERSONAL Reference. No

one ever thought of ASCRIBING it to an individual; that is, no one

until John when he was praying about how to begin writing this

particular Gospel that it might enhance the Synoptic writers. And

then the Holy Spirit communicated to John saying why not use this

term that most are familiar with. Holy Spirit said John you can use

this as a POINT OF ORDER and let your readers know that JESUS is the

LOGOS in which they are so found of referencing. There are some that

think the only function of the Holy Spirit is to cause you to JUMP,

SHOUT, and RUN AROUND the church Sunday after Sunday. Therefore, if

we are not looking all ugly and Bad Extensions falling out of our

head - throwing blankets over sisters when they fall out - then the

Holy Spirit is not present. I want you to know that I learned just

as John learned 2,000 years ago, the Holy Spirit will TALK to Us -