(Message Notes & Meditation Moments – September 4-5,2021 – For more, go to www.summitdurango.org)

Theme: Restoration and Renewal – Life and Pandemic “Celebrating the Future Together” Weekly Memory Verse:

42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals, including the Lord’s Supper, and to prayer. –Acts 2:42

Spiritual Formation or Family Activity Ideas for the Week: At the end of this week, we will

remember it has been 20 years since 9-11. Pastor Jeff often quotes Frederick Buechner’s words, “The worst thing is never the last thing.” We can say this because of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. As a family or group or by yourself, create a collage of hope. Gather some magazines, markers, glue, scissors, and a piece of poster board. Cut out pictures from the magazines (or print some off the web) of images that bring hope to your family. Use the markers or crayons to draw pictures and write words that communicate hope. Talk about what brings hope to the whole world. Include images and words representing those also. Place your collage of hope in your home where everyone can see it or give the collage to someone who needs hope. Thank God in prayer for your family and for hope.

Monday, September 6 – Read Haggai 2:1-5 and Nehemiah 8:5-10. After decades of exile for Israel, the Persians conquered Babylon and let the Israelites go home. But the community quickly faced a nostalgia issue. The prophet Haggai called them to look ahead, not back to “the good old days.” Then Ezra read God’s law to the gathered exiles, and people began to weep. The text does not say why, but guilt seems a fair guess. Nehemiah told the whole group of people this was not a time for sadness. No, he said: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Most of us have been through times of relative isolation, loss and fear during this pandemic. The Bible described joy amid persecution in Luke 6:22, 23, extreme poverty in 2 Corinthians 8:2, “trials of any kind” in James 1:2, or unjust imprisonment in Acts 16:22-25. How do you think joy differs from “happiness”? How can the Holy Spirit’s presence, and the presence of other believers, make the joy the Bible writers described possible even in tough times? Pastor Eugene Peterson wrote, “One of the most interesting and remarkable things Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping. Christian joy is not an escape

(Message Notes & Meditation Moments – September 4-5 2021 – For more, go to www.summitdurango.org)

from sorrow.” The Israelites faced big tests—they’d returned to a wrecked city and temple, with many hostile neighbors. Yet Nehemiah told them that God’s joy in being together was their strength to rise above challenges. When have you found the strength of God-given joy in fellowship with others?

Prayer: Lord God, you didn’t call me to serve you all alone. You called all of us who love you to join a family of faith. Thank you for virtual connections, and now for the chance of renewed in-person contacts. Amen.

Tuesday, September 7 – Read Romans 12:10-15 and 13:8-10. Paul sent this letter to Roman house churches. From Romans 14-15 we learn that these churches differed. Some were mainly Jewish and others mostly Gentile. Their customs and ideas of virtue varied. It was easy for them to criticize each other. Paul said God’s kingdom calls us to relate in ways bigger than specific rules or laws. “Be the best at showing honor to each other,” was a big challenge to people at odds with one another. But it was (and is) vital, because for Paul, “love is what fulfills the Law.”

The Roman house churches could grow alienated from each other. In what ways can worshipping alone online create similar spiritual issues? How can being with other worshippers in person create common ground and connectedness that you might miss by staying isolated? How can you best nurture a living sense of involvement with your family of faith? Ask the Holy Spirit to help you make that, rather than ease or convenience, the main reason for your worship choices. Paul spoke to differences over relatively minor issues (yet some people felt strongly about them). How do you think some of them might have reacted at first to the statement that, “Whoever loves another person has fulfilled the Law”? Do you know anyone who is truly loving, but in some parts of life acts in ways that you see as wrong? Do you believe Paul was right, or was he too soft on “law breakers”?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for making it feasible for me to worship when it hasn’t been (or isn’t) safe to gather in larger groups. But remind me that you called me to make this spiritual journey with others when possible. Amen.

Wednesday, September 8 – Read Philippians 2:1-4. Paul didn’t write to the Philippians about encouragement, love, and sharing as abstract ideas. His letter made it clear there were tensions and disputes among the Christians in Philippi. Paul urged Jesus’ followers there to let love unite them. That, he said, would make his joy complete. The actions Paul encouraged in verses 1-2 are good guides for relationships. Our starting point always needs to be humility, considering others before ourselves as an extension of who we are as Christ followers.

Paul longed for Jesus’ followers to think the same way and agree with each other. Today’s culture values independence, of thought and action. Is Paul’s vision possible in the 21st century? Is it possible during a pandemic? How can what we’ve learned over the past 18 months shape “unity” and “agreement” in ways that may be different, but that uphold them as key values in our faith? We encourage people to have good self-esteem based on understanding who they are in Christ’s love for them. Does thinking of others as better than yourself detract from self-

(Message Notes & Meditation Moments – September 4-5 2021 – For more, go to www.summitdurango.org)

esteem or selfcare? Was Paul asking people to become self-destructive martyrs? What does humility look like when relating to others, in your family, your workplace and particularly your church?

Prayer: Holy Spirit, I want to love as you love. Help me to make choices that make me receptive to your presence in and through other members of my church family. Amen.

Thursday, September 9 – Read 1 Corinthians 12:24-27. In New Testament times, Lowliness was not considered a virtue by Greek culture but was viewed as weakness. Sometimes this negative meaning appears in the NT. We see this in 2 Corinthians 10:1, when Paul’s opponents at Corinth remarked about the weakness of his personal demeanor. New Christians in Corinth, who’d grown up in that Greek culture, struggled to value each other. The apostle Paul taught them that love was an intensely practical, real-life quality that called them to honor one another.

Paul said, “You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.” That is what we mean when we use the churchy-sounding word, “fellowship.” When have you been part of a group, in church, school, work or elsewhere, where this kind of love and mutual caring existed? Have you ever suffered from belonging to groups where love and mutual caring were conspicuously absent? History says the ancient Greeks saw humility in relation to others as a weakness, not a virtue. Would you say our culture’s values are different? Think of the attitudes you see in films, music, politics, or sports. In what ways are we still a lot like the ancient Greeks? How easy or hard do you find it to truly celebrate with someone else who is receiving praise, or to share another person’s pain?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, grow in me the love and humility that will allow my gifts and abilities to honestly bless others and build your kingdom, not my own. Amen.

Friday, September 10 – Read John 13:34-35, 15:12-17. Jesus’ actions in the gospels sends a clear message that God does not merely tolerate sinners. God loves us when we sin, fall short, say things we wish we had not said, do things we wish we had not done, get separated from God, from others, and even from ourselves. God, even being perfect and having the ability to punish, does not regard sinners with aversion, but with love; costly love we see in the cross where Jesus died to save us all. Jesus lived, and taught his followers to live, a steadfast love expressed by the Greek word “agape.” He told his disciples he didn’t call them servants, but friends. And the main “fruit” he asked them to bear was to live in God’s love by loving one another.

Jesus said, “You didn’t choose me, but I chose you.” We do indeed choose Jesus—but only in response to the ways, visible and invisible, he reached out and chose us. Are you thankful God chose you to be part of God’s family? When Jesus said his new commandment was to love each other, “just as I have loved you,” that took agape “love” to a whole different level of sacrifice and commitment. How did Jesus’ words and example highlight the profound difference between “liking” and the kind of love he offered and called us to? What, in practical terms, does it mean for you to love others as Jesus loves you?

(Message Notes & Meditation Moments – September 4-5 2021 – For more, go to www.summitdurango.org)

Prayer: Lord of love, your love is comforting, but not always comfortable. Give me the courage and commitment to move my life in the direction of loving others as you have loved me. Amen.

Saturday, September 11 – On this 20th anniversary of 9-11, read Lamentations 3:17-26. The writer of today’s passage (quite possibly Jeremiah) lived through a great tragedy when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem. It was as though on September 11, 2001, a huge army of enemies had leveled and burned not just several buildings, but all of Washington, D.C., or New York. Still, amid the bodies and the rubble he writes about in Lamentation, Jeremiah clung to trust in God’s goodness.

“[God’s compassions] are new every morning,” we read in verse 23. Pastor John Guest wrote that, “the grieving mind was learning to live one day at a time. It is an art we all must learn, but it is a difficult one.” What experiences, what words of Scripture, anchor you daily to God’s loyal, merciful love, and bring you hope even in the most desolate of times? In grief, we often lose hope that things will ever get better. How can the 20th anniversary of 9/11 during this time of pandemic show us that even awful events aren’t “the end of the world”? Facing our grief openly can free us from the past to live more fully today. What losses do you need to grieve? See a counselor if you need to—it’s never too late to find new peace and hope. We also have a confidential grief support group meeting the third Wednesday of each month at Summit Church from 4 to 5:30 in room 202 (upstairs above the main offices). Their next meeting is this week, September 15.

Prayer: Lord God, tragedies like the terrorist attacks twenty years ago and the pandemic we are experiencing today tempt me to despair. Thank you for living, dying, and rising again to offer me (and all of us) a new outlook on life and its meaning. Thank you for transforming the awful things in my life into something better when I open myself to your healing touch. Thank you that, “the worst thing is never the last thing.” Thank you for promising beauty from ashes, and dawn after every dark night. Amen.