Renewing Your Wonder

What a wonderful morning and again we're just so thrilled that you're here joining us either live or on our live stream. On this busy Mother's Day weekend we're gonna wrap up our little series R&R about how to refuel and refocus. I got a simple message for you today but again first of all we want to celebrate all the moms here so again we can't applaud them too much let's applaud all the moms. It has just been such a great day and I also in part of celebrating you and an honor you honoring all of you I would like to pray for you as well on behalf of the rest of the church so would you join me in prayer.

Heavenly Father thank you for motherhood and all it represents enduring self-giving love, patience, kindness, nourishment for our bodies, our hearts, our souls. All of these things and more reflect your love for us even as our Lord Jesus said as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings so you long to gather your children to yourself. So God bless all our moms today and bless and comfort all who long to see babies or children that they've lost as well as those whose longing for children has not been realized. Lord you know the hearts of each and every one of these women and so we ask for your blessing upon each of them today we pray this in Jesus name amen.

Well now for just a few moments I want to talk about renewing your wonder your wonder. Here's why this matters so much because your life can consist of an endless stream of appointments. You go from one event to the next and the next and the next and the next and the next until you die or along the way you capture moments you notice everyday miracles and you find yourself thinking wow even in hard times there's still goodness and grace and beauty and joy. What makes the difference between these two realities? A sense of wonder.

It's actually pretty simple but all too often our sense of wonder gets snatched away by so many other things. I mean for example how about just getting to church today right moms because we all know that part of Mother's Day weekend means that mom wants everyone to cheerfully come to church with her to you know get enthusiastic be on our best behavior until we're not. In fact it reminds me of my sister Barbara I have two sisters older brother my sister Barbara unearthed this old picture of the three of us that's how many we had so far this is from the late 1960s okay I I don't know if this is Mother's Day or Easter Easter we even had to dress up even more which we loved even less but just for by way of introduction this over here this this brave lad over here this is a fellow Twin Lakes pastor and our older brother Paul Spurlock right here he would want you to believe that the son is in his eyes but in fact he's crying like a baby right here.

This is Barbara she's having a lovely time as well. Younger sister Jenny hadn't been born yet. I'd like to think I'm relatively composed next to the next you know what do you think? 50 years between then and here. Back here this is my dad I noticed he's left the door open he's not quite sure whether or not he's on board with us he wants to be able to go right back into the house and has a real excited look on his face and where's mom? She's taking the picture of course because she's the only one who cares to take the picture it was all part of you know her Sunday morning dream until of course it blew up in her face.

Any of you moms relate to that? We can all relate to this because it happens whenever we think you know hey maybe I'm on the cusp of a moment and then instead you're left with tears and snotty noses or some other type of little disaster and then you lose sight and awareness of the wonder of life and the wonder of every single day. Or maybe you're at a point in your life where you if you're honest you just simply feel bored because kind of the same old same old day after day and you wonder will I ever have that that sense of awe like maybe I had way back when when things were different because listen having a sense of wonder is the difference between simply breathing and being alive it's the difference between enduring life and enjoying life the difference between you know decent marriage or a lifelong love affair with your spouse.

And I get it you know you might go wonder that's kind of a soft subject I mean it's like is Oprah gonna talk about wonder too but check out what Job says about this in chapter 5 verse 9 says he performs wonders God performs wonders that cannot be fathomed miracles that cannot be counted you see the problem is not a lack of wonders the issue is whether or not we will actually notice them and so often we don't and if you read the Gospels you'll notice that the disciples have the very same problem things can be playing out miraculously all around them and they're like whoa what's going on in fact amazingly with the biggest wonder ever the resurrection of Jesus they're like completely clueless and if that's possible for them if you can miss that man you can miss anything which means it would be wise for all of us to be asking ourselves what are the wonders around me that I'm not saying.

I want to take you to an amazing story Luke 24 you have to see this for yourself this is the story of the resurrection and I just want to say up front or kind of the story around the story if you will I want to say up front the main point of Luke 24 is that Christ is risen but it raises the question how does that impact the lives and the awareness of those around him those closest to him I find it fascinating how the disciples it just they're just kind of lost in the fog again like so many of us well again you may know this story Jesus has told his disciples multiple times that he is going to be crucified but then he will rise again on the third day very specific information but on that third day after he dies on the cross Mary Magdalene and some of the other women they go to the tomb completely expecting the body to beware in the tomb and so the rock is rolled away and the body's gone they kind of freak out somebody's stolen the body or there's some terrible tragedy that they're there that's facing them and look what happens at verse 4 it says while they were wondering about this suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them Wow the word wondering here in the original it means to be perplexed at a loss anxious because what in the world is going on and you've been there right you've been there perhaps because something with your health or your finances your family your job something goes sideways in your life and you're like oh I wonder what I am going to do next well that kind of wonder is not really the kind that we're going for today but that's exactly where Mary and the women find themselves in that moment and it may be where you find yourself right now with something very specific.

Well eventually the women they go back to where the the 12 disciples are hiding behind a locked door and they announced to them that the body is missing and they're like what are you talking about that well first of all thing one yes the body is gone the the rocks rolled away but thing two there were two guys that kind of explained what was going on to us and oh by the way they were glowing glowing yeah glowing like really really bright and on the basis of what they told us we think that Jesus is alive did the disciples say wow that is such wondrous news nope it says that they regarded the words of the women as foolishness that is nonsense that is crazy they are the kind of patronizing the the women who bring this this report to them except for one one guy among the twelve whom often gets kind of poked fun at by people like me other pastors but in this case Peter is the hero because it says at verse 12 they're all like scoffing at this information Peter however went away wondering to himself what had happened.

Now this is after he has run to the tomb we know from if you were here with an Easter John who writes his own account wants to remind us that he beat him there but after they see the grave clothes and where Jesus had been laid he walks away wondering to himself what happened Luke uses a different word here in the original when he says wondering doesn't mean to be perplexed at or at a loss it means to be amazed astounded to marvel over something it suggests that in this moment Peter is trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle and he doesn't have them all assembled but he has a sense that God is on the move that God is up to something.

Now let me ask you something when was the last time you felt that kind of wonder when we ask you when was the last time I felt I was filled with wonder over you know I don't have all the information but I just have a sense God is in this or you you know you're out and about and and something you know you see something in creation or you see something in in in the face of a child or whatever it might be and it fills you with wonder I mean God gave us a head start this morning when he saw all those beautiful precious babies and it's like wow it's just amazing.

Now again this is not our tendency our tendency if we're not careful and some more than others is to just view life as if the glass is always half empty right yeah things are good but let's talk about the things that are bad right and if we're not careful we kind of become a Debbie downer you might say and if not you let's just say it's not you but you know a Debbie downer maybe there's one in your life and you when you see this person you know you say hello you are polite but you have learned to avoid this question hey how are you doing right because you know what's gonna follow oh not good another terrible day and so you just tiptoe around that because you don't want to get on the bummer train with them do you you love them in the Lord you're not gonna ask them how they're doing no learn better.

Now what is the problem if we get stuck in that kind of attitude no wonder right do you want to live your life like that do you I surely don't and so I want to just point out three very simple things that we can all apply that will help renew our sense of wonder today and the first one is this remember God's wonders remember them like I said Jesus announced his death and resurrection on multiple occasions but after the crucifixion they're like oh my goodness what a total bust we gave three years of our life and this is how it ends this is terrible but let's go back to the tomb verses 6 through 8 this is the the gleaming guys one of them says to Mary and the others what remember how he told you while he was with you in Galilee the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men be crucified and on the third day be raised again he said this multiple times then they remembered his words oh yeah there was that little thing about him rising from the tomb.

I mean let me ask you what do you need to remember today what do you need to remember what it was like to hold your wife for the first time or your husband maybe it was the birth of a child your own or somebody else's dear to you and you're just filled with ah I remember Barbra you saw in the picture she was a first one of us to have a baby and when my niece Mallory was born I was just like I'm an uncle wow my sister had a baby it's incredible and yet you know we lose sight of those things how about when you got baptized if you have and you came up from the water and it just felt like God's grace has just saturated me and you're in awe of that or a time when you went through a very difficult situation was like you were just stuck in a tunnel day after day of darkness and then finally God brought you through to the other side and you were reminded in that moment that God is faithful and filled you with a sense of wonder over his goodness and his grace or just this is not hard for us to do the last time you just took a moment to drink in the beauty of God's creation it's like God you are amazing.

Psalm 77:11 says this I will remember the deeds of the Lord yes I will remember your miracles of long ago you may know way back when the Israelites were crossing into the promised land they had to cross over the River Jordan which was flowing at flood stage it was impassable God says I'm gonna stop the flow of the water which he does in fact it dries up and then he says to Joshua who then passes it along to the priest he says when you cross over on the dry riverbed I want you to pick up how the priests pick up 12 stones and make a monument on the other side why did God tell them to do that well he explains himself he said the day is gonna come when among your descendants their children will ask them hey what are those stones doing there because they will have forgotten the story and in that moment you are gonna tell them that you crossed the Jordan on dry land in fact you crossed the Red Sea on dry land and you are to remember this and this is for the whole world that they would know that the hand of the Lord is strong and that the Lord is to be feared in other words he is worthy of our worship and our wonder.

And you know you don't have to be you know part of the group that crossed the Red Sea or the River Jordan to do this you can do it in very simple ways in fact about 15 16 years ago we had a family retreat up at Camp Hammer and I don't know there's another little micro baby boom going on a bunch of younger couples with their kids our kids were very young at the time and I was sharing along these similar lines and so after sharing a message with the same themes we gave each of the couples a little rock with the word wonder engraved in it in fact this is the rock I'm holding in my hand here's a picture of it on screen that this has lived on our kitchen windowsill ever since so that I see it all the time I'm doing the dishes no I'm I do see it often and I'm reminded of the words that you know I was sharing back then in fact I'm reminded yesterday when I was holding this and and looking at it it just took me right back to that weekend took me back to that special time at that special place at Camp Hammer and of course I fast-forwarded in my mind to August 2020 when the CZU fire ripped through the camp and destroyed pretty much all of it and I wondered if maybe God has a second act for camp he knows he'll let us know in his good time but I know this I was reminded that the hand of the Lord is still strong and that the Lord can do whatever he pleases and not only that but that the Lord has chapters yet to unfold not perhaps just only in the ministry there but in our own lives you have chapters yet to unfold because the strong hand of the Lord will make it so he will do what he intends to do in our lives do you believe that well that should fill us all with a sense of of just wonder and anticipation and however you remember it whether it's a simple thing like a rock or a journal or art or a photo remember God's wonders it'll make such a difference.

The second thing that we can all apply is to request vision for God's wonders because can't remember what you never saw or noticed right so this is kind of a linchpin here I experienced this in a fresh way last Sunday I drove down to San Diego to prepare for a week-long mission trip with our Twin Lakes Christian School seventh graders and I went down the day ahead they were gonna fly down Monday morning because my kind of pre-mission mission was to haul down in my truck at 30 gallons of paint rollers drop cloths all sorts of different supplies sports equipment you name it trucks loaded I drive down there spend the night hotel next morning I wake up and while the kids and with my wife Laura 25 very hyper seventh graders and some adults a group almost 40 in total they're getting ready to board a plane of sound and say fly down to San Diego to meet me in the meantime I'm trying to get more paint because apparently there's a paint shortage in the state of California so I'm hitting up the Home Depot's and the like in San Diego and it's taking longer than I anticipated and then I've got to go to the airport before they land find a rental van that's parked in the short-term parking take all the stuff in my truck put it in the van find a place to park my truck for the rest of the week before they touch down because then I got to get to the curbside pick up the drivers go get more vans come back and get the kids while my wife and the others are trying to control 25 really hyper seventh graders got the picture.

Laura says don't be late drive up to the short-term parking lot there is a gate across it and signs that say lot full okay we're off to a good start there's a guy sitting there nice guy and I say hey I need to get in there and take all the stuff my truck put it in a van and and then find a place to park and maybe it's a cheaper parking long term right and he goes huh there is no long term do you see all the construction that's long term parking this is your option good luck oh yeah by the way lots full okay ah ha but I think to myself I'll just switch places with the van right problem solve so I drive in find the van in front of the van is a sign that says 60 minute parking violators will be choked I need five days not 60 minutes so I okay one thing at a time see maybe there's a parking space I go down first lane I go down drive down and all of a sudden oh an open stall and I pull in like this is awesome got a place to keep the truck go over get the van I'm thinking I'm just gonna park the van behind the truck and hopefully won't get honked at and I'm just gonna load everything into my truck drive up into the same lane where my truck is parked and wouldn't you know right across from it oh a second lane I mean this place was jammed it was in second stall for me to park I'll show you this was so cool by now I'm laughing okay there's the van starting to load the supplies there's a truck how convenient is that truck and take stuff over right back to the van.

Now the reason I'm laughing out loud here because is because earlier that morning as I was praying I was saying Lord help me to live this sermon you know help me to see the little miracles that are happening around me yeah I know don't get ahead of me because we all do this right especially it's a task task task gotta hurry up you know planes coming Laura's texting me we've landed and and yet I'm laughing because oh here you go God and if you know me you know I am NOT the kind of person who prays for a parking space in front of the store anything like that I have to confess sometimes I look down on that because I think God has other things to do then but in this moment God's like saying mark I can do whatever I care to do I'll give you one spot no I'll give you two just so you can learn not to look down on people who pray for parking spots there you go knock yourself out.

Yeah amazing now you need to catch up it all went great we were having an awesome time and let me ask you is it possible is it just possible that there's something someone in your life where either the thing the interaction they become so routine you don't pray about it you know I pray about the big things leaf things you could even say we live our lives in kind of a secular realm when we think that we don't need God in as a part of every single thing we do right you track it with me I'll call on you for the big things but if I got it you know I got it God you know you go do whatever else you need to do who wants to live like that not me and so God had to kind of you know give me a general reminder who's in control around here.

So request God's vision for his wonders let's go back to our story because watch how Jesus you think Jesus had fun with me down in that parking lot watch what he does here in this passage later in Luke 24 two other disciples followers are talking about news has spread the tomb is empty they're discussing this and it is while they were talking and discussing Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them but their eyes were prevented from recognizing them okay so get the picture he just saddles up next to him they're like I don't know who this guy is but we're not gonna tell him to go away one and he said to them what are these words that you're exchanging with one another as you're walking and they stood still looking sad one of them named Cleopas answered and said to him are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days you need to circle under underline this verse because here a guy named Cleopas if you've ever felt kind of like you know you said the wrong thing you need to go back to this guy right here because Cleopas tells Jesus Christ to get a clue dude what's wrong with you I love that.

Well it turns out that this stranger seems to know a lot about the Bible in fact he seems to know how it all connects to what's happening on that weekend with the empty tomb and the crucifixion and all this kind of stuff so they're like hey why don't you come and have dinner with us at our house and so they sit down to have a meal and that's when Jesus takes the bread and he blesses it and he breaks it and he distributes it distributes it to these people sounds familiar doesn't it yeah it was an eye-opener for them too it says that when he did this then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight and they're like ah missed it by that much in fact they said to another to one another weren't our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road while he was explaining the scriptures to us and we were so close but our eyes had to be opened all over again to the wonder of Jesus in their midst.

Now again is it just possible no it's not just possible we actually believe that Jesus is here right now in his spirit he is in our midst he is working in our lives he is walking with us and the road of life do we see him in those moments and if not ask him to help you see it's as simple as that because life is so much richer when we remember God's wonders when we request vision for his wonders and finally it gives us an opportunity to celebrate his wonders look at what the disciples do once they understand that they are part of the greatest wonder of all the resurrection of the Messiah it says at Luke 24:50 when he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany he lifted up his hands and blessed them while he was blessing them he left them and was taken up to heaven then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and they stayed continually at the temple praising God.

Now you have to imagine Jesus has now left them they're praising God but their circumstances are still pretty tenuous I mean they their master had been crucified the Romans weren't there at the temple praising God the chief priests weren't at the temple praising God the very people who killed their Lord well who's next they are they've got the target on their back and so and yet they had this attitude you know we don't know what tomorrow holds but Jesus is alive we don't know what's around the next bend it might be scary it might be painful but Jesus is alive and so they celebrate the reality just changes their perspective on all of life.

You've heard the saying that life is like a roller coaster right it's got the ups it's got the downs well I think we would all agree that's true and so the question is are you are you riding the ride of life like this celebrating the twists and turns and the adventure or are you writing it like this it's the same ride the only difference is whether you're full of wonder or abject fear what can you celebrate today church well being alive celebrate pretty safe to say you know if you're here you have a mom she may be with you she may be with the Lord that may be complicated but celebrate the good guys sons daughters celebrate your mom take advantage of an opportunity to celebrate the wonder the gift that you've been given and that's just one thing you know the list just goes on and on and on and on if we remember and that's got to open our eyes we will have opportunities to celebrate over and over and over again as Psalm 107 says let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind so may your sense of wonder just swell up within you because his wonders are all around us amen amen.

Let's pray heavenly father thank you for this wonderful day thank you for the opportunity to celebrate our moms thank you for the opportunity to worship the opportunity Lord to hear from your word and Lord I pray that we we all know that that life is difficult we don't want to minimize that we acknowledge that but Lord I pray that you would inform our minds and you would widen our perspective in such a way that in the midst of chaotic events in the midst of sadness and loss and wondering what's next you'd fill us with a sense of ah holy wonder that says nevertheless Jesus is alive he is working in my life he is working in this world his kingdom will come in fullness his will be done perfectly and fully and so I want to live my life as a member of his unshakable kingdom with a sense of expectation and anticipation and awe of the wonderful deeds that are all around us and that he does out of his goodness and love thank you God we praise you this day we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ all God's people said amen amen.