My sermon series will go something like this:

1. Jesus: Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?
2. Personnel Jesus: What Jesus can do for you today.
3. Counter Culture Christ
4. Jesus CEO
5. Are you someone Jesus despised?
6. Evolution: What Jesus said about your future.

If you haven’t checked out Parkway Church, then please come say hi in Victoria, Texas.

Week 1: Transformation: your tomorrow begins today!
Transformation through silence and solitude

START OFF WITH 3 MINUTES OF TOTAL SILENCE

In our noisy and chaotic lives, we need to take a moment to breathe in and be still.

Psalm 131:2 (New Living Translation)
Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself,
like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Why do we need silence and solitude?
1. Because Jesus did it
Matthew 14:23 (The Message)
With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.

Mark 1:35 (The Message)
While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed.

Luke 4:42 (The Message)
He left the next day for open country. But the crowds went looking and, when they found him, clung to him so he couldn’t go on.

John 6:15 (The Message)
Jesus saw that in their enthusiasm, they were about to grab him and make him king, so he slipped off and went back up the mountain to be by himself.

2. Because we need God’s direction
EVAN ALMIGHTY CLIP
“I commend solitude to any of you who are seeking salvation, first, that you may study well your case as in the sight of God. Few men truly know themselves as they really are. Most people have seen themselves in a looking-glass, but there is another looking-glass, which gives true reflections, into which few men look. To study one’s self in the light of God’s Word, and carefully to go over one’s condition, examining both the inward and the outward sins, and using all the tests which are given us in the Scriptures, would be a very healthy exercise; but how very few care to go through it!” (C. H. Spurgeon)

C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity says, “God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

3. Because our mind, body, and spirit need it
Mark 6:31 (New Living Translation)
Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.

Psalms 46:10 (The Message)
“Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.”

What prevents us from being silent and alone?
1. Fear of our past or fear of our future (which can turn in to negative beliefs)
CLIP OF I AM LEGEND
2. Our culture
Living the Christ-centered Life Between Walden and the Whirlwind, Jean Fleming observes, “We live in a noisy, busy world. Silence and solitude are not twentieth-century words. They fit the era of Victorian lace, high-button shoes, and kerosene lamps better than our age of television, video arcades, and joggers wired with earphones. We have become a people with an aversion to quiet and an uneasiness with being alone”

How do we do it?

1. Location, location, and location (Find them in your home, around the corner, and for overnight stays.)
2. Start off simple
3. Schedule time away during the year

First, think of silence and solitude as complementary disciplines to fellowship. Without silence and solitude we’re shallow. Without fellowship we’re stagnant. Balance requires them all. (Taken from Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney, copyright 1991.)

THE CHALLENGE: TAKE 15 MINUTES THIS WEEK TO BE ALONE AND QUIET.

Our newest series began last Sunday and it’s a 5 week discussion on some of the most critical things you can do to transform your life. The upcoming weeks will be:

1. Transformation through silence and solitude
2. Transformation through community: God created loneliness…then he solved it
3. Transformation through setting your soul free – the unseen battle
4. Transformation through knowing ME: Awareness of who we are and who we could become is critical to transforming our life.
5. Transformation through serving

Each week I’ll upload my notes as well as the accompanying audio for the sermon.

That’s right, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, was originally done as a radio broadcast in the 1940′s.  Skip even worked it out to get KICKS 105 fm to carry the show several days in a row…live!  We were able to put the good news of the Gospel on live secular radio during the Christmas holidays.

Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted and to turn our own sinfulness and the sins against us into blessings! Listen to my latest sermon to hear what it takes to find a blessing in any situation.