7/28/2019 Snuggle Time with Jesus

This morning scripture is from first John Chapter 4 verses 7 through 16 beloved. Let us love one another because love is from God everyone who loves is born of God and knows God whoever does not love does not know God for God is love God love was revealed Among Us in this way. God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins beloved since God loved us so much. We also ought to love one another no one has ever seen God if we love one another God lives in us and his love is perfected in Us by this. We know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us of his spirit and we have seen and do testify that the father who has sent his son as the savior of The World God the Bible God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the son of God and they abide in God so we have known and believe the love that God has for us God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them.

So before we turn the floor over here, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you guys for all your patience last couple of months as we've worked at work through Pastor Rob's paternity leave and give thanks to everybody who has taken a turn to speak on Sundays. It's been it's been very interesting to hear what some barley speakers have had to say over the last couple of months. And so that's you know, we thank you for your patience with us. And then we think those people for stepping up and doing what needed to be done. And also a thanks to our folks who have provided pastoral care for the last couple of months. I Jim Whitaker Jeff Morrison. They have done a great job for us as well. So wanted to make sure that those people got recognized and also, you know, everybody else has gotten an introduction and so I thought Ryan shouldn't be any different. He has he's a guy that I've known my entire life. He and his family have been a big part of this church. As long as I can remember and he's one of the smartest probably the smartest person I've ever met. And so I'm really interested to hear what kind of thought he's put into this and what he has to say. So without further Ado, this is Ryan Whitaker

Thank you, Dustin. I'm going to. James and don't talk from down here. We'll see how that goes. My pleasure to be here this morning on the last of your lease speakers. We have another guest speaker next week, but it's in the professional this time for communion and then robbed his back the following week, but at Dustin said it right I do wanted to say thank you to all the other lace speakers who served over the summer it it's really been a cool experience. It's so neat to see what the lady of the church can do when given the opportunity to step up and all of you did an amazing job you you set the bar way too high. So I need everybody to take a minute and lower your expectations a little bit. My my goal for today is to say something about Jesus without passing out or throwing up from the nurse. So if if you can set your bar somewhere down that low, I think we'll get through it together. Dustin talked two weeks ago about stepping outside of your comfort zone and how important that is for people of Faith. This is way outside of mine before this morning, you know, this wasn't anything that I've ever done. It's not something I've really ever felt called to do. It's not something that I'm comfortable doing. You would think that as much time as I spend around preachers that it would it would be comfortable but it's not and it's apparently not genetic and I've played golf with Dad and Mike yesterday and I was hoping some of that preacher in this wood would rub off for come over via osmosis. I don't think that happens to say that I do need all the help I can get so let's pray. Father God we ask you to be present here in this place this morning. Ask that your words that come from my mouth and that we all be open to hearing what you have to say to us today. Amen. LS weekend we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and said medley. I've always been a bit of a nerd especially when it comes to All Things space. Thank you, Carol Smith.

But this was such an important moment in sort of our Collective identity as humans and As Americans that even though it happened 15 years before I was born it still. I felt called to at least talk about it this morning. So I do want to mention one thing. You know, when I was thinking about how to work that into a sermon I kept ending up at stepping outside of your comfort zone. So and Dustin nail bat two weeks ago, so I'm not going to go back there. But I do want to talk about it a bit but first a trivia question and I still got Smarties. So there are Smarties in it for you if you know the answer. Does anyone know what the first food consumed on the moon was?

the first food consumed on the moon Good guess but no. Not on the moon they were in in the lunar module on the moon.

That's the second time. I've heard that joke this morning right nicely done. Now. It was communion Buzz Aldrin was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. I think it's Presbyterian and he got special permission to include communion bread and wine in a little chalice in his personal effects on the moon and during their several hours between the eagle has landed and one small step for man wear during that quiet time, but serve communion. I think that's a really cool fact bonus question another opportunity. What was the second food consumed on the moon? That was actually the first real planned meal didn't know the answer, but you don't get too damn. It does too so you two are disqualified.

Ice cream. That would be nice. No, it was actually bacon. Yes, I don't know if it was dehydrated bacon or what kind of bacon it was but I love that fact you and what's more American than eating bacon on the moon right eye and that's so cool. I love those two facts for very different reasons, but I love them both. But what I want to talk about with the Apollo 11 landing and is one of the challenges that they had to overcome for the Apollo program to succeed with how to stay in communication with the spacecraft and with the astronauts throughout the mission, I think about that. We were sending three people in a small complicated spacecraft 230 some thousand miles away. And we needed to send voice and data in both directions are needed to be able to send back images and video all the end up back in Houston on Earth, which at times would be on the wrong side of the earth and think about that the technology probably existed at the beginning of the Space Race, but it would have been so big and so power hungry but there was no way I could have been carried on the spacecraft. It's a hundreds of Engineers. I think General Dynamics was the company that did it but it took hundreds of Engineers thousands and thousands of man-hours to design and build the S band radio system that ended up flying on the Apollo missions and on the earth it took a call to Constellation but a series of relay stations around the Earth. We're talking millions of millions of dollars and thousands and thousands of man-hours all for the purpose of keeping the astronauts connected with her and that's what I want to talk about this morning and staying connected in relationships. It when we when you boil it down relationships between people are just connections right in one form or another could be intellectual emotional spiritual physical some or all of those connections make up our relationships on her and I can't say that I didn't tell you I was going to do this cuz I told you already this morning at 9, but I'm going to use my relationship with my wife as a bit of an example this morning and I managed to do it the first time without getting in trouble so full say how it goes this time around. It when we think about the connectedness in our relationships that we tend to think about the big moments the high points, right? My wife and I started our first date was homecoming our freshman year basically and so that's a high point that I think about and I think about the other homecomings and proms I think about our wedding day honeymoon another vacations. We've taken the birth of our children our first apartment our first home another one that comes to mind a few years ago Jen and I went to a marriage conference really cool experience and what happens especially with that marriage conferences you come back from these big moments and your relationships at a high point, right? You feel more connected you feel more in tune you feel closer. Then maybe ever before but then the normal right, but then what happens? Real life happens, right the normal stuff of Life starts to get in the way and you start to come off of that high. There's a news article. I read several years ago and I have to give a bit of a disclaimer. I've used this illustration before in a church Council devotion. So I think that part did rub off from playing golf with pastors. I'm reusing stuff from from previous. Yeah. Yeah.

But there's an article several years ago that I ran it was about a satellite and the mission of the satellite was to orbit through the very upper layer of the Earth's atmosphere and study the composition in the characteristics there. And because it was orbiting much lower than a normal satellite would it was designed very differently. So when you guys picture of satellite you probably think of some sort of ugly boxy looking thing with antennas and solar panels and stuff sticking out in all directions. Right? Well, this one was very different the article actually described it as the Corvette of satellites. Now, I saw a picture of this thing at the time and it does not look like any Corvette I've ever seen but it was designed to be very or dynamic. What's the point they were getting it and despite that despite the fact that the satellite was designed very differently sign to be as aerodynamic as possible and despite the fact that it was orbiting in a layer of atmosphere where the air was so thin just a few particles of air in any given volume despite all of that there was enough friction enough drag their that the satellite had to almost constantly burn its engine just to keep its altitude. And this article was talking about the end of life for the satellite. It was expected that in the coming weeks. It would run out of fuel as planned and within days or even hours after that that little bit of friction would be enough to pull it down into the thicker part of the atmosphere and it would return to Earth in a firewall. I was hoping to catch a few of those Fireball that's why I was really into this article because there was a chance they weren't sure exactly when it would happen if there was a chance it would be sort of over the Midwest. I think it ended up in Siberia. So no luck there. But you know, I think our relationships are a lot like that satellite not in the crashing back to Earth in a fireball part least. I hope not but our relationships move through an atmosphere friction just like that satellite then friction from conflict and stress and selfishness and busyness and distraction.

You know, so when we came back from that marriage conference in real life started to happen again, it bought us. I've been thinking about it in a month. Maybe, you know, if they were flying high for a month or more but really starts to happen again, you know you fall back into the old patterns. Things come up and you start to feel less connecting and what it boils down to is that the big moments are not enough to sustain a relationship in the way. It needs to be sustained. They can't be high enough and I can't be frequent enough. That'll be all there is there has to be something in between it take small moments of connecting this in-between to maintain a relationship through those high points. Infer my kids that's not that's what snuggle time is. When I first met another illustration of used again, so I'm really picking up on things from those preachers in my family, but that again is a little different purpose. But when I first use that illustration Lily I think was in may be kindergarten or first grade and she's rolling her eyes at me right now. So mission accomplished, but at the time the way that her morning routine overlapped with mine created 3, and I think maybe even sometimes for short periods of time where she could snuggle with either me or Jen. And when she missed one because breakfast went long or we slept late or whatever issues and it cause problems sometimes there were tears. Sometimes she just felt off for the rest of the day, but those little moments of connectedness were vital for her and feeling like a relationship with us was in a good place as somewhere for my wife and I you know, we lead busy lives very typical for families these days but there are plenty of weeks during the year, where will have something scheduled every night and on some of those nights our schedules will overlap in such a way that will barely even see each other until after the kids go to bed. And then sometimes we have to have dinner because we didn't have time to do it before. But we do what we do do is we always go to bed around the same time, and we have a few minutes of snuggle time before we go to sleep either to talk to discuss the things that we didn't get a chance to during the day or just to be together just to feel connected as we drift off to sleep. and those moments are very important for us to know if we have to miss one or more because we're exhausted and one of us had to go to bed early or I'm in Minneapolis on the trip like happened a few weeks ago or we got a kids sleeping sideways in her bed, but that's always a fun one or most likely have done something stupid and I'm out on the couch, you know that happens to but when we miss some we feel the difference in a relationship we can feel The connection start to fall a little bit not like going to crash and burn but you can tell those are important for us and there are other moments to write and for every all of you that are in that are couples out there. You can probably identify those moments snuggle time moments in your own relationship doesn't have to be snuggle time things like you had going on walks or weekly date night or watching a TV show that you like to watch together. You can probably identify those moments in your own relationships those small moments of connection that sustain you between the high points and doesn't just apply in romantic relationships either. Does it know my dad's sitting there? I don't snuggle with my dad. I don't I may have at some point but we don't do that anymore by you to play golf with him yesterday. That's that was our snuggle time. We watch the Cardinal game every once in awhile together. We are crazy texts between him and my brother and I have the same stupid one liner jokes that we've been doing for 20 years at this point at those are Arsenal. Play moments. I think you'll find that same Dynamic and all of your relationships as you think about him. So why am I talking about that this morning, or I want to re-read the last part of that scripture that Sammy read earlier, and I'm going to read it from the message everyone familiar with the message. Full disclosure. I normally don't like the message. There's some people that love it. I'm definitely on the other end of the spectrum. I think it tries way too hard at times but there are also times when it can put a verse in just a little different light and storage shed new light on an old verse and that's that's the way this is for me. So this is verses 15 and 16 from that scripture before. The message says that everyone who confesses that Jesus is God's son. This is the important part for this morning. Anyway participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it. So well, we've embraced it heart and soul This Love that comes from God. Is he one of the cool things about our religion is that we are called not just to love God or to serve God or to obey God or to worship God. We are called to be in a relationship with God. And one of the things I found as I've gotten older and had more mature relationships in my own life, is it our relationship with God mirrors aspects of all of our three relationships and I think you can see that when you think about the imagery in the book A bulary that we use in the church. We talk about God the Father we talked about God as a teacher God is an authority figure we talked about a nurturing and loving God like a mother figure we talked about Jesus our brother Jesus our friends and we talked about the Holy Spirit. We talked about it a relationship that has an emotional intimacy like that with a spouse. relationship with God Echoes all of those Earthly relationships

because there's a human side to each of those relationships. The dynamic is the same. We can all think about the high points in our relationship with God can't we anyone who's ever been on a mission trip or been to a powerful Revival or a Christian concert with an altar call or witness the birth of a child. You know what it's like to be on the Mountaintop in your relationship with God, don't you? But then what happens?

Then what happens? In our relationship with God moves through an atmosphere friction from doubt from San from Temptation from distractedness from busyness feelings of unworthiness.

And if we aren't constantly working to maintain our relationship with God if we aren't having the small moments of connecting this in between the big moments relationship suffers. I think we've all been there to write we've all had periods of time in our life where were too busy to put effort into staying connected with God. When I think about what snuggle time with Jesus looks like for me, it's things like feather Carol. I can't recall and popcorn prayers is that yours carolers at set the girl was just calling popcorn prayers little prayers throughout the day that you just throw up to God listening to Christian music in my car on the way to or from work better yet listening to my kids singing Christian music in the car on the way to or from somewhere or the beauty of a sunset or the power of a thunderstorm. Those are small moments of connectedness in my life with God. And just like every relationship is different your relationship with God probably has different moments, right the things that connect you to God aren't the same as the things that connect me to God, but I hope that you can all think about it find those moments in your lives. So I want I want to leave you with two points this morning before you wrap up. At the first is that if you don't know what snuggle time with Jesus looks like for you, please take the time to do it figure it out. What what are the little things in your life that keep you connected to God and make those as important a part of your life as staying connected with your spouse or your best friend or your family. The second thing is that you know, we use a church live in a world full of people who are desperate for connection. Desperate for meaningful connection. If you don't believe me or you need proof of that just look at the number of people on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or any of the dating apps are there people out there who are desperately searching for Connection in those ways and they're not they're not finding what they need digital followers aren't the kind of connection that they're looking for, but we know we're really looking for don't we And we as a church part of our mission should be to provide as many ways as possible both big and small and I think we do that pretty well in this church, especially with the big ways of connecting with Jesus. We should be the place where people can come for snuggle time.

Alright, let's pray. Father God we thank you that you are a God who wants to be in a relationship with us help us to keep our eyes on that relationship to put as much emphasis on it in our lives as we do our Earthly relationships. We love you. We thank you. Amen.

Etsy